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COLUBRID ®. 171 
rhachis by bending the body dorsally. The application of this 
character, first employed for taxonomic purposes by Prof. Cope, 
. but which had not hitherto been tested in a thorough manner, 
t leads to some unexpected results as to the affinities of many genera 
a and species the position of which appeared somewhat problematical. 
: Thus all the Madagascar Colubrine have the hypapophyses deve- 
: loped poner the vertebral column, and thus differ from the 
4 Fig. 12. 
4 
-]/{, «= = 
Posterior dorsal vertebrae of :— 
A. Lioheterodon madagascariensis. B,. Heterodon nasicus. 
a. Back view. 6. Lower view. c. Side view. 
American genera Liophis, Heterodom, Dromicus, &ce., with which 
they have long been associated, although, indeed, a careful com- 
parison of their external structure alone shows these views to 
have been based merely upon very superficial resemblances. As 
regards those dwarfed, degraded forms which have hitherto been oP 
associated as Calamariide, I have endeavoured, as far as possible, = 
to bring them into nearer neighbourhood to such more powerful a, 
Snakes, from which, so far as the value of their characters can 
be correctly estimated, there is reason to believe they are derived. é 
Thus Haldea and Streptophorus are placed near Tropidonotus and 
allies, as proposed by Cope, Simotes and Oligodon near Coronella, 
and so on; in the same way as in the family Boide the genera 
Eryz, Lichanura, Charina, Bolieria, and Erebophis have been 
incorporated among the Boas, and Loxocemus and Calabaria 
among the Pythons instead of being grouped together as “Erycida,” 
In the case of the Boas the course followed is so obviously in 
accordance with the spirit of a natural classification, that I do 
not anticipate any objection being raised against it. It has been 
my aim to carry out the same principle in dealing with the large 
and far more difficult group of the Colubride. 
a 
