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INTOTES ON SOME RARE VARIETIES OF SoUTH 



Australian Snakes. 

 By a. Zietz. 



[Read October 1st, 1887.] 

 Diemenia superciliosa, Fischer. 



This specimen is a rare and remarkable variety of tlie com- 

 mon brown snake. The marks on the neck (usually black) 

 are brown and confluent, but with the superciliary and 

 posterial nasal scutes black. The back, along its whole length, 

 is marked with alternately broad black and yellow bands, each 

 nearly one inch wide, and the light spaces between are decorated 

 with, generally, five undulatiug and transverse black lines, the 

 anterior and posterior ends of which join the margins of the 

 broad black bands. These marks are particularly distinct 

 upon the posterior two-thirds of the body. The belly is straw 

 coloured, with brick-red spots irregularly distributed, and in 

 several cases they are confluent. 



Length of specimen, 17 inches. 



It was found at Sedan, South Australia. 



Vermicella Bertholdi, Jan. 



Two specimens of this very rare snake were forwarded from 

 TJno, by Mr. C. M. Bagot, and are now in the Adelaide Museum. 

 It is figured in Prof. Jan's " Iconographie Generale des 

 ■Ophidiens," under the name. Maps Bertlioldi, locality, Ade- 

 laide, Australia meridionale. The type specimen is in the 

 Museum of Gottingen, Germany. One of our specimens is 

 probably a matured specimen, and the second a very young 

 one. The habit is stout, with a very short tail. The whole 

 length 25 ctm., of which the tail is only two ctm. ; 15 scales 

 around neck, 124 ventral scales, 16 pair of caudals, two anals. 

 The whole body is very smooth and glossy, and alternately 

 black and bright orange, ringed by 29 black and the same 

 number of orange rings ; each scale of the orange rings has 

 a light yellow spot in the centre. The lower surface is not 

 nearly so brightly coloured, and the orange rings change into 

 yellowish. The head is, both by its markings and colour, well 

 distinguished from all the other parts of the body, light 

 brownish, with some regular darker markings. The throat 

 lias, alternately, indistinctly lighter and darker longitudinal 

 markings. The young specimen, which measures ten ctm., is 

 yellowish white and black banded, but shows the same mark- 

 ings on head and neck as the adult. Our specimens are the 

 first, with exact locality given. This snake has not been 

 figured in its natural colour. 



