366 The Philippine Journal of Science isis 



Description of type. — Head rather distinct from the neck; 

 rostral high, bending back over the snout, pointed behind; in- 

 ternasals narrowed on the inner side, much wider than long, 

 the suture between them much less than the prefrontal suture; 

 prefrontals somewhat rectangular in shape, almost twice as wide 

 as long; frontal shield-shaped, much longer than its distance 

 from the end of the snout, equal to the parietal in length, not 

 twice as broad as the supraocular but of nearly equal length; 

 parietals as broad as long, bordered by two temporals; nasal 

 medium, undivided, the anterior portion much the higher; loreal 

 large, longer than wide; a single elongate preocular, widely 

 separated from the frontal ; two subequal postoculars ; temporals 

 1 + 2; seven upper labials, the fourth alone entering the eye; 

 upper margin of labial series very much broken; seven lower 

 labials, four touching the large chin-shields ; second pair of chin- 

 shields about one-half the size of first pair; scales in 17 rows, 

 smooth ; smallest scales dorsal, of angular shape ; laterally, scales 

 larger and rounding; ventrals, 154; anal divided; subcaudals, 32. 



Color in life. — Above grayish brown, becoming grayer later- 

 ally, with a median, dorsal, salmon-pink streak the length of 

 the body. Body traversed by twenty saddlelike blotches, which 

 widen medially to the width of three scales and narrow greatly 

 laterally, usually to the width of one scale. The blotches are 

 black, inclosing a gray spot, dorsally, the entire blotch edged with 

 a narrow grayish white line, less apparent medially. Between 

 each two blotches laterally there is a series of two or three small, 

 elongate, white-edged dark spots, each smaller than a scale. 

 Neck with a forked blotch, each leg of which begins laterally at 

 the seventh ventral and goes up and forward where the two 

 meet medially, some distance behind the parietals, and run for- 

 ward much narrowed to the middle of the frontal ; a dark broad 

 line present below the eye, which is more or less continuous with 

 a band crossing the snout on about the anterior level of the eyes. 

 A line beginning on second ventral runs up diagonally to the 

 parietals ; a spot below the nostril and another on the sixth labial. 

 Two or three spots on the lower labials ; four ventrals on neck 

 with spots. Ventrally immaculate brilliant rosy pink, almost 

 red toward end of body. Total length, 381 millimeters ; tail, 47. 



Remarks. — In markings this species resembles much the Phil- 

 ippine Holarchus ancoiiLS, but it is well differentiated by a single 

 labial entering the eye, the undivided nasal, and the divided 

 anal. It agrees with H. woodmasoni and H. maculatus in hav- 

 ing a single labial entering the eye. The differences from the 



