AET. 19 GEEEN PIT VIPER FEOM CHINA STEJNEGER d 



1842) in preference to erythrui^us, given by Cantor three years earlier, 

 is not explained. 



Werner ^ likewise recognized the difference between specimens 

 from Indo-China and Sumba Island (one of the lesser Sunda Islands) 

 on the one hand and the traditional T. graminevs on the other, 

 but relied for their distinction chiefly on the separation of the first 

 supralabial from the nasal. However, he names this form Lachesis 

 fasdatus (Boiilenger), apparently because the latter was described 

 from the island of Jompea [Djampea], one of the small islands 

 between Celebes and Flores, assuming it to be identical with the 

 Sumba form. Miss De Kooij,* however, who examined the type 

 specimens from Djampea as well as specimens from Sumba [Soemba], 

 regards the former as distinct and the Sumba specimens as con- 

 specific with the typical T. gramineus. Therefore, if the Djampea 

 form is distinct, the name fasdatus becomes inapplicable to the Sumba 

 and Indo-Chinese form. But even if it is not separable, the name 

 is inapplicable, because in that case it is synonymous with the typical 

 T. gramineus. 



The above review disposes of all the differential names given to the 

 green bamboo pit viper up to 1924, with the exception of Gray's 

 Trimesurus elegoms^^ from Sikkim, which, however, is unavailable 

 irrespective of the form to which it belongs, as his Graspedoce'phalus 

 el&gans of 1849 is a true Trimeresurus.^ 



In 1925 Karl P. Schmidt diagnosed briefly two Chinese Trimere- 

 surus as 2\ stepiegen and T. yunnanensis^ respectively.'^ The former 

 is plainly Guenther's and later authors' restricted, northern and 

 mountain T. gramineus, but the use of this name is, of course, inad- 

 missible as it is based solely on a specimen from Vizagapatam, on 

 the coast of eastern continental India (Province Madras). Since all 

 the other names belong to this same form, it follows that the one 

 given by Schmidt is the only valid name for this form. 



Trimeresurus yuTwianensis is described as being distinguished by 

 having only 19 rows of scales at mid-body. Thus far the recorded 

 specimens from East Central Yunnan all seem to agree with this 

 statement, but the number of specimens reported on is too small to 

 assign a final status to this form. The specimens from the extreme 

 western Yunnan do not belong to it as shown by Anderson's account. 



The characters ascribed to the various forms, apart from possible 

 color differences and the difference in the number of scale rows, are 

 chiefly the following four: 



1. Size of internasals and their contact or separation by interven- 

 ing scales. 



3 Sitz. Ber. Akad. Wiss. Wien, Math. Nat. Kl., sec. 1, vol. 133. 1924, pp. 47-48. 



*Rept. Indo-Austral. Arch., Ophid., 1917, pp. 284-285. 



5 Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., sei-. 2, vol. 12, 1853, p. 391. 



8 See Herpet. Japan, 1907, p. 470. 



TAmer. Mus. Novit., No. 157, Feb. 13, 1925, p. 4. 



