Dr. W. Peters on Taphrometopon lineolatum. 481 



lateral edges of carapace subcoriaceous. Rostral plate with its body 

 wide but not deep, with three strong and sharp spines in front ; cen- 

 tral spine longest, not so long as the ophthalmic pedicel ; the other two 

 come out obliquely, one on each side of the body of the rostral plate. 

 First four abdominal rings smooth above ; fifth abdominal ring 

 smooth at the base, at the tip with four or five transverse rows of 

 short spines longest at the tip ; sixth segment with many (about 

 fifty) crustaceous spines, bluntish, and with a short coriaceous bristle 

 at the end ; caudal ring on its dorsal surface with twenty-two long 

 outstanding crustaceous spines tipped like the others, each of the 

 lateral margins with two rows, like combs, of crustaceous spines, 

 which meet behind and terminate at the end of the lateral spines — two 

 of the four which arm the hinder margin of the caudal ring. This 

 hinder margin has three notches, the middle one deepest, their pro- 

 jecting sides ending in the spines, the sides of which are pectinated 

 with smaller spines. Segment of raptorial leg before the claw rather 

 slender, not bulged at the end beneath. The claw minutely serrulate 

 on the inside near the tip. From the indications of marbling in the 

 dried specimen, this curious Gonodactylus is most probably finely 

 and variedly coloured when alive. 



February 12, 1861.— John Gould, Esq., F.R.S., in the Chair. 



On the Asiatic Snake called Taphrometopon lineo- 

 latum BY Professor Brandt. By Dr. W. Peters, of 

 Berlin, For. Mem. Z.S. 



The late Professor Eversmann of Kasan discovered in the year 



1822, on his journey from Orenburg to Buchara, a species of Snake, 

 which was described by Lichtenstein * as "Coluber trabalis, Pallas." 

 The specimens are, as I find from the manuscript notes which Evers- 

 mann sent with his collection, from Buchara and the desert of " Bur- 

 zuk " (Barusek), on the eastern shores of lake Aral, and bear in our 

 museum the label " Nordasien, Eversmann." There were originally 

 five examples of this snake in our collection ; and three are still there. 

 One of them was sent in December 1823 to Temminck. Now, as 

 the description of Chorisodon sibiricum (in the 'Erpetologie Generale,' 

 viii. p. 901) may perfectly well be applied to the Coluber trabalis, 

 Lichtenstein (not Pallas), in the Berlin Museum, and as Bibron ex- 

 pressly remarks that his " Monodiastetna" is founded on a speci- 

 men in the Leyden Museum labelled " Coluber trabalisf," the latter 

 is doubtless the same which Temminck received fi'om Lichtenstein in 



1823. I think this explanation necessary to prove that the habitat 

 of the Leyden specimen is not Siberia properly so called, but the 

 more southern part of Central Asia. 



This snake is (what I should not have found out from Bibron's 

 description), in the form and concavity of the head, and in the lan- 

 ceolate longitudinally-grooved scales, very much like Ccelopeltis la- 



* Ed. Eversmann, ' Reise von Orenburg nach Buchara,' Berlin, 1823, p. 146. 



t Dumeril (/. c. p. 902) cites Coluber trabalis, " Schlegel." But this seems to 

 be a mistake ; for Schlegel's Coluber trabalis is, as Dr. Giinther (Catalogue of 

 Snakes, p. 93) justly remarks, synonymous with Coluber {Elaphis) dione, Pallas, and 

 the true Coluber trabalis of Pallas only a variety of Zamenis atrovirens, Shaw, sp. 



