REPTILES OF THE PACIFIC COAST, 



173 



curving downward to broad rounded snout. Temporal 

 regions rarely if ever swollen. Rostral plate large, little 

 broader than high, hollowed below, and bounded behind 

 by internasal, anterior nasal, and first labial plates. 

 Plates on top of head, a pair of internasals, a pair of 

 prefrontals, a short, broad, irregularly wedge-shai)ed 

 frontal, supraocular of each side, and a pair of large 

 parietals. Anterior and posterior nasals distinct. A 

 small loreal. One preocular and two (rarely one or 

 three) postoculars. Temporals normally two followed 

 by three. Seven superior and nine or ten inferior labials, 

 fifth and sixth superior and fifth inferior largest, third 

 and fourth superior reaching eye, first pair of inferior 

 meeting on median line. Geneials in two pair, anterior 

 much larger than posterior. Scales smooth, thin, im- 

 bricate, in twenty-three (or twenty-four) rows. Anal 

 plate undivided. Gastrosteges varying in number from 

 two hundred and twenty-six to two hundred and thirty- 

 six. TJrosteges in two series of from fifty to fifty-eight. 

 This is a very peculiar snake, which may prove to be 

 a mere variation of Lampropeltis boylii, from which it 

 does not differ in size, form, or scale characters. There 

 is an immense amount of variation in the color pattern; 

 indeed this is rarely alike in any two specimens. The 

 head is not colored differently from that of L. hoylii, 

 except that there often 

 is more yellow near the 

 posterior edges of the 

 parietal plates. Along 

 the sides of the body are 

 more or less broken lon- 

 gitudinal lines or bands of white or yellow. Above 

 these the coloration is dark brown to the median line, 

 along which is a single, definite, narrow line, or a series 



