95 



CORONELLA GETULA.— imntews. 



Plate XXI. 



Characters. Head small; snout rather truncated; colour above beautiful 

 shining raven-black, with about twenty-two white, narrow, transverse bars, bifur- 

 cating on the flanks to form a nearly continuous waving white line; tail barred, 

 but without lateral lines; abdomen raven-black, with a shadowy tinge of white in 

 certain lights. PI. 215. Sc. 49. 



o 



Synoxtmes. Chain Snake, Catesby, Carolina, &c., vol. ii. p. 52, pi. Hi. 

 Coluber getulus, Linnteus, Syst. Nat, torn. i. p. 388. 

 La chaine, Laceplde, Hist, des Serp., torn. ii. p. 300. 

 Coluber getulus, Gmelin, Syst. Nat. Lin., torn. i. part iii. p. 1106. 

 Coluber getulus, Latreille, Hist. Nat. Rept, torn. iv. p. 174. 

 Coluber getulus, Daudin, Hist. Nat. des Rept., torn. vi. p. 314, pi. Ixxvii. 

 Coluber getulus, Shaiu, Gen. Zool., vol. iii. part ii. p. 467. 

 Natrix getulus, Merrem, Versuch eines Sj-st. der Amphib., p. 196. 

 Pseudo-elaps getulus, Fitzinger, Neue Class der Rept., p. 56. 

 Coluber getulus, Harlan, Med. and Ph3's. Res., p. 122. 

 Chain Snake, Thunder Snake, King Snake, Vulgo. 



Description. The head is small, short, and rather rounded at the snout; the 

 vertebral plate is regularly pentagonal, broad in front and pointed behind; the 

 superior orbital is oblong-quadrilateral, narrow before, broader behind, and but 

 slightly projecting externally over the eye. The occipital plates are large and 

 pentagonal; the frontal are irregularly hexagonal, with their narrowest border 

 downward and outwards; the anterior frontal are regularly quadrilateral, a little 

 broader without and narrower within. The rostral plate is broad, short, trun- 



