VIPERA LOPHOPHRYS. 



flexible. In the specimen described, the length from the nose to the tail is 

 17 inches, and the length of the tail 2 inches 2 lines. The abdominal plates 

 are 131 ; the subcaudal scales 28. 



Vipera cornuta and V. lophoph?-ys are, without doubt, identical ; the latter is simply either 

 the reptile of a more advanced age, or a variety peculiar to certain localities. The result of 

 my experience inclines me to the latter conclusion, as I have never heard of specimens of 

 V. lophophrys having been procured beyond the limits of Namaqua-land, a district of the 

 western and southern division of the Colony. Even in that district examples are rarely to be 

 procured ; and though I was many months exploring in it, I only met with two individuals, 

 and those were in fellowship, of equal size, marked exactly alike, and proved to be male and 

 female. Those specimens I subsequently showed to the natives of other parts of South Africa, 

 and received for answer, that they were the Hornsman, but of a different kind to that known to 

 them, it being understood that the kind they spoke of, as that with which they were acquainted, 

 was the V. cornuta. Upon these grounds I regard it as a variety of the locality mentioned. 



On close examination of the two kinds or varieties, some individual differences are discovered, 

 which, if they were permanent, might be regarded as indicating them to be of two species ; but 

 that not being the case, and as it appears the like variations occur even in the same variety, 

 they cannot be regarded as suited to furnish specific characters. In the Vipera cornuta which 

 is described, the rows of scales on the body consist of twenty-five, but in others I have 

 counted only twenty-three. Hence, nothing important can be attached to there being twenty- 

 seven in V. lophophrys. 



