69 



COLUBER EXIM1\JS.—Dekay. 



Plate XV. 



Characters. Head rather short; snout rounded; body above milk-coloured, 

 with a triple series of dark spots; vertebral range largest, and transversely oval; 

 lateral series smaller, sub-round, with a lighter spot in the centre; abdomen silver- 

 white, each plate marked with one or more quadrilateral black spots, so arranged 

 as to give a tessellated appearance. PI. 198. Sc. 47. 



SrNONTMES. Coluber eximius, Dehay, manuscript. 



Coluber eximius, Harlan, Med. and Phys. Res., p. 123. 

 Coluber calligaster, Harlan, Med. and Phys. Res., p. 122. 

 House Snake or Milk Snake, Vulgo. 



Description. The head is rather short, with the snout rounded; the vertical 

 plate is short, very large, nearly triangular, broad in front, and acute angled 

 behind, with two facets for joining with the occipital plates, which makes it 

 obscurely pentagonal; the supei'ior orbital plate is large, irregularly quadrilateral, 

 broadest behind and slightly projecting; the occipital plates are large, very broad 

 and pentagonal; there are two temporals, quadrilateral, of which the upper is 

 smaller; the frontal plates are hexagonal and large, with their internal margins 

 broadest, and the external reaching between the anterior orbital and posterior 

 nasal to a square loral plate; the anterior frontal are quadrilateral and broadest 

 externally; the rostral plate is short, thick, and rounded in front and above, and 

 concave below; there are two nasal plates, the anterior quadrilateral, incurvated 

 behind; the posterior is elongated, sub-hexagonal, and joined behind to a small, 

 quadrilateral, loral plate, situated in front of the anterial orbital, which is single 



