Ill 



COLUBER ALLEGHANIENSIS. 



Plate. XX. 



Characters. Above shining black: beneath, white on the throat, becoming 

 clouded with bro^vn on the anterior part of the abdomen, and entirely slate-colour 

 towards and beneath the tail. Head elongated, rather large, distinct from the 

 neck; body very long; scales on the back carinated, on the flanks smooth: tail 

 one-seventh of total length. PL 235-40, sc. 78-84. 



Description. The head of this Serpent is elongated and large; and the mouth 

 is also large. The vertical plate is pentangular, short and broad; the supra-orbital 

 plates are large; the frontal, also large; the nasal, somewhat trapezoidal; the 

 rostral is above triangular, rounded in front and broad; the temporal are variable, 

 sometimes consisting of two or three narrow plates, or their place chiefly occupied 

 by the last labial plates, very much enlarged; the posterior orbital are two in 

 number; the anterior orbital, suigle, and very large; the loral is small, and tape- 

 zoidal. The nostrils are lateral, and placed at the junction of two large plates. 

 The eyes are rather large, the pupil black, the iris brown. 



The neck is small; the body much elongated, fusiform or tapering at each extre- 

 mity. The scales are oblong-oval and bipunctate at the apex: those on the back 

 have a distinct carina; the four or five inferior rows on each side are smooth; on 

 the tail they are broader and hexagonal in form. The tail is short and tapering. 

 The specunen figured had 235 abdominal plates and 78 pairs of subcaudal scales; 

 a second, 240 plates and 84 scales. 



