244 THE EEPT1LES OF EGYPT. 
I have never seen any Eryx so treated, but the deception of giving false horns to 
hornless specimens of Cerastes comutus, so as to enhance their value, has come under 
my observation. What was supposed to be a fine horned example of that viper was 
forwarded to me alive in London ; but the horns, instead of being its own, were the 
spines of the hedgehog of the delta, Erinaceus auritus, firmly fixed into the head, one 
over each eye. 
The snake described as Anguis jaculus in the ' Iter Paltestinum ' had 186 ventrals and 
23 subcaudals. In the 10th ed. of the Syst. Nat. (1758) Hasselquist is mentioned as 
having described it in the foregoing work ; but the subcaudals are returned not as 23, 
but as 18. In the Mus. Adolph. Frid. Prod. ii. 1764, p. 48, and in the 12th ed. of the 
Syst. Nat., the ventrals and subcaudals are quoted as in the original description. The 
Stockholm Museum received two specimens of Anguis jaculus from the King's 
Museum, and in Quensel's MS. Catalogue they are entered as having come from it, and 
it is stated that they were the type specimens of the species ; but in the ' Iter Palaes- 
tinum,' and also in the 12th edition of the ' Systema Naturae,' only one snake is described, 
its ventrals and subcaudals being as stated above. The question arises, which of 
the two specimens is the type? One is a fully adult individual, with a total length of 
53 centim., and the other is half-grown, with a maximum length of 39 centim. The 
former has 184 ventrals and 22 subcaudals, and the latter 193 ventrals and 18 subcaudals. 
The total length of the type specimen is given by Linnaeus in the Syst. Nat. as 2 feet, 
which may be taken as roughly representing the length of the larger of the two 
specimens; and as its ventrals and subcaudals practically agree with the numbers given 
in the ' Iter Palaestinum ' and in the ' Systema Naturae,' it may be accepted as the type 
of the species. The circumstance that 18 subcaudals occur in the 10th edition of the 
Syst. Nat. suggests, in view of that number being present in the smaller specimen, 
that the latter was possibly then in existence and thus may have given rise to the 
difference in the notation of the subcaudals mentioned above. 
I have to express my great indebtedness to Professor Smitt for the many facilities 
he accorded to my artist on his visit to the Stockholm Museum for the purpose of 
figuring the few Linnean types still preserved there that have a direct bearing on the 
fauna of Egypt, for all the information he has so freely given me regarding them, and 
for his kind permission to reproduce in this work figures of the types of Anguis jaculus l , 
Coluber situla, and C.jugularis. The type of A. cerastes appears to have been lost. 
1 It was not my intention to have figured the type of this well-known species unless the types of A. colubrinus 
and A. ceras tes had been forthcoming; but as Mr. Smit had drawn the two specimens mentioned above 
together on one stone, I have reproduced his drawings as a plate rather than lose the result of his labours. 
