RHINOSTOMA COCCINEA. 127 



Dimensions. Length of head, 6 hnes; breadth of head, 6 hnes; length of body, 

 17 inches; length of tail, 3 inches: total length, 24 inches. 



Habits. The Scarlet Snake is very timid, and lives most of its time in 

 concealment; seldom does it move abroad unless disturbed, or in search of its 

 food, which is the various kinds of crickets, grasshoppers, &c. 



Geographical Distribution. The range of the Rhinostoma coccinea is very 

 limited. As yet I can only give, with certainty, from lat. 34°, in the Atlantic 

 states, to the Gulf of Mexico. 



General Remarks. The first account of this serpent may be seen in 

 Lichtenstein and Voigt's Magazin;* it is very accurate, and was furnished by 

 Blumenbach. Gmelin copied it in his edition of the Systema Naturae of Linnaeus, 

 and Dr. Garden is given as authority for the locality of the animal. 



Daudin next 'gave not only a full and accurate description of the Rhinostoma 

 coccinea, but he accompanied it with an excellent figm-e. The "Couleuvre 

 ecarlate" (Scarlet Snake) of Bosct is quite another animal, doubtless the 

 Calamaria elapsoidea, as both his description, as well as his plate, represent it 

 as entirely surrounded with black bands, while in the Rhinostoma coccinea 

 the whole abdomen is of beautiful silver-white. 



I cannot, by any means, agree with Schlegel, the distinguished ophidiologist, in 

 placing this serpent among the Heterodontes, because it differs from them in so 

 many particulars. The Rhinostoma has the head small, short, and not dilatable 

 at will. In the Heterodon it is broad, flat, triangular and dilatable. In one 

 the body is sub-cylindrical, and always of the same size; in the other it is always 

 more or less depressed, and can be flattened extremely. 



* Vol. V. p. 10. t Nouv. Diet. d'Hist. Nat, torn. xiii. p. 267, pi. xxxiii. fig. 3. 



