COLUBEE SITULA. 275 
more or less spotted with blackish. A black semilunar band, convex anteriorly, 
passing across the upper surface of the head from the anterior margin of one supra- 
ocular to the other, anterior to the frontal, but involving the hinder half of the 
prefrontals ; a narrow black line between the suture of the supraocular and parietal 
and passing backwards to the angle of the mouth, and a narrow black line along the 
mesial suture of the parietals and bifurcating posteriorly to join the lower black 
marginal line of each lateral brown body-band ; labials margined with blackish. 
In the variety to which the term qiiadrilineatus has been given there are four 
longitudinal bands, and in the typical form leopardinus there is a series of brown or 
reddish spots margined with black, more or less transverse in their arrangement and 
alternating with smaller black spots on the sides. The under surface in these colour 
varieties is sometimes almost wholly black. 
It attains, according to Mr. Boulenger, to 900 millim. in length, of which the tail is 
160 millim. 
It is distributed from the Adriatic (Trieste) to the Euxine (Crimea), Southern Italy, 
Malta, Greece and its islands, Chios, Asia Minor, and Syria. 
Boettger has recorded it from Beirut, but its presence in Egypt has yet to be 
confirmed. While it is true that Linnaeus ascribed the specimen now in the Stockholm 
Museum to Egypt, it is noteworthy that it was not included by Hasselquist in his 
account of his discoveries in that country, and it must therefore be supposed that it 
was afterwards found by Linnaeus among the collections of his late pupil, along with 
two other species — C. jugularis and C. tyria, also referred to Egypt. The last- 
mentioned type has been lost. This species, C. situla, however, has never been met 
with in Egypt since the days of Linnaeus, and, in conjunction with this, the fact that 
Hasselquist travelled through part of Palestine and also of Asia Minor cannot be lost 
sight of in estimating the reliance to be placed on the accuracy of the locality ascribed 
to it and to Z. jugularis. 
This species was first described in the 10th ed. of the Syst. Nat., and it appeared in 
the second part of the Mus. Adolph. Frid. 1 , and again in the 12th ed. of the former 
1 Linnaeus, in the first part of the Catalogue of Adolphus Frederick's Museum (1754), described a snake 
under the name of Coluber corallinus *. In the margin of the text the sex is given as that of a male, the 
ventrals as 193, and the subcaudals as 82, and, what is rather a novelty in Linnasus's description of snakes, 
the number of scales across the body is stated to have been 17 ; and the scales are said to have been 
smooth. This snake was said to have been obtained in Egypt. A reference to Seba's work is quoted as 
follows : — "Serpens corallina amboinensis, Seba, Thes. 2, p. 18, t. 17. fig. 1." It is further mentioned that 
it was "Serpens ipsissimus SEBAE, delineatus in ihesauro, qui deglutit ac ingurgitat Lacertam coendeam, cf'C." 
This serpent reappears in the 10th and in the 12th edition of the Syst. Nat., but in both of these works 
Asia is substituted for Egypt. Mr. Boulenger, in the Appendix to the third volume of the ' Cat. of 
Snakes 't, identified it with Liopliis triscalis, Linn., of South America, and a drawing which Mr. Smit made 
of the specimen at Stockholm, that came from the Museum of Drottningholm, fully verifies the correctness 
of his identification. 
* Op. cit. p. 33. t P. 634. 
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