88 ELAPSFULVIUS. 



Description. The head is short, thick, and stout, not very distinct from the 

 body, and rounded in front. The vertical plate is pentagonal, broadest in front, 

 and pointed behind; the superior orbital are regularly quadrilateral, and do not 

 project externally over the eye; the occipital plates are large and irregularly 

 oblong; the frontal are pentagonal, broadest internally, narrow and pointed out- 

 wards and downwards; the anterior frontal are irregularly quadrilateral, broadest 

 internally; the rostral plate is triagonal, broadest below, narrowed and rounded 

 above. There are two nasal plates, the anterior quadrilateral, the posterior 

 triangular, the former concave behind, the latter concave before, to complete the 

 nostrils; there is one very large and irregularly quadrilateral anterior orbital, and 

 two small posterior orbital plates, rounded and nearly of the same size; back of 

 these are two or three large temporal plates; the upper jaw is covered with seven 

 quadrilateral labial plates, the largest being behind, and the third and fourth 

 forming the lower part of the orbit of the eye. The nostrils are lateral and near 

 the snout; the eyes are small but prominent; the pupil dark; the iris reddish-gray. 

 The neck is nearly the size of the head; the body greatly elongated and nearly 

 cylindrical, becoming suddenly smaller at the tail, which is short, small and 

 pointed. 



Colour. The head is black in front, with a bright yellow band at the occiput, 

 running forwards and downwards under the lower jaw, narrower above and 

 broader below. The ground of the colour of the body above as well as below, is 

 jet black, surrounded by about seventeen crimson rings, each with a yellow border 

 both anteriorly and posteriorly, and having two or three black spots on the 

 abdomen. The tail is black, with three or four yellow rings; the tip is yellow. 



Dimensions. Length of head, 7 lines; greatest breadth of head, 5 lines; length 

 of body, 20 inches. In the specimen described, there were two hundred and twelve 

 abdominal plates, and thirty-two pair of subcaudal scales. 



Habits. They are found in common with the Coluber coccineus and Coluber 

 elapsoides, living under ground in the fields where the sweet potato (Convolvulus 



