61 



COLUBER OBSOLETUS.— %. 



Plate XII. 



Characters. Body above, black, beneath, whitish, with large sub-quadrate 

 black spots; confluent and pale bluish near the tail; throat and neck pui'e white; 

 sides with red marks between the scales. PI. 228. Sc. 84. 



Synontmes. Coluber obsoletus, Say, in Long's Exped. to Rock. Mount., vol. i. p. 140. 

 Coluber obsoletus, Harlan, Med. and Phys. Res., p. 112. 



Description. The head is sub-ovate, elongated, and covered with plates above, 

 which, as far as they can be studied in a dried specimen, are of precisely the same 

 size and form as in the Coluber constrictor. The nostrils are lateral, large, and 

 near the snout. The body is very long and slender, and is covered above with 

 small, smooth, sub-hexagonal scales, bipunctured at their tips. 



Colour. The head is black above; the chin and throat pure white; the eye is 

 large, the pupil blackish, and the iris deep bluish-black, surrounded by a silvery 

 circle. The body above is black, the anterior half with a series of continuous 

 red spots formed upon the skin between the scales, many of which have white 

 marginal dashes near their bases. These red spots are not perceptible unless the 

 skin be dilated so as to separate the scales. Abdomen white, slightly tinged with 

 yellowish-red, dotted with black points, and spotted with large, oblong, quadrate 

 marks, continuous and plumbeous near the tail. Sometimes the spots are wanting 

 on the anterior half, but the posterior half and tail are always plumbeous. 



