14 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



and always find at least a few of the scales with two pits ; whilst 

 some specimens may even have most of the scales with two, as, 

 amongst others, the specimen found near Bournemouth by Master 

 Monk. 



The Smooth Snake rarely exceeds the length of two feet. 

 The largest specimen in the British Museum measures 28 inches 

 (720 millim.). The startling record of a Danish specimen over 

 4 ft. long (1280 millim.), by Sarauw (Nat. og Mennesk. Copenh. 

 x. 1893, p. 216), is possibly based on some exotic specimen escaped 

 from confinement, the more so as the number (218) of its ventrals 

 is outside the known range of variation of C. austriaca. This 

 species is ovoviviparous, and the young at birth measure 5 to 6 

 inches. 



The upper parts are brown, yellowish, or reddish, often with 

 one or three more or less distinct lighter stripes, and with small 

 dark brown, blackish, or brick-red spots usually arranged in pairs, 

 or forming ill-defined cross-bars ; frequently two dark stripes on 

 the nape, usually confluent with a large dark brown or black 

 blotch on the occiput ; a dark brown or black streak runs along 

 each side of the head, from the nostril to the angle of the mouth, 

 passing through the eye, sometimes extending along each side of 

 the neck. The belly is often brick-red or orange in the young, 

 usually reddish or purplish brown or lead-grey in the adult, 

 uniform or speckled with blackish or whitish. 



A remarkable male specimen (480 millim. long), obtained 

 between Kierling and Weidling, near Vienna, has been sent to me 

 by Dr. Werner. Its snout is remarkably short and broad (see 

 p. 13, fig. a), the opposite extreme to the v&r.jitzingeri; the frontal 

 shield is much longer than its distance from the end of the snout. 

 The snake is pale brown above, with four blackish parallel fine lines 

 along the anterior fourth of the body, the median pair enclosing 

 large reddish brown black-edged spots forming more or less 

 regular bars, these markings producing the ladder-pattern well 

 known in the half- grown Rhinechis scalaris. The belly is red 

 dotted with black, the lower surface of the tail with a black spot 

 in the middle of each subcaudal shield. The specimen is further 

 remarkable in having two small yellowish, dark-edged spots close 

 together on the back of the head, separated by the suture between 

 the parietal shields. 



The only notice of melanism in Coronella austriaca is to be 



