May, 1893.] REPTILES OF THE DEATH VALLEY EXPEDITION. 203 



Suborder n. OPHIDIA. 

 Family Leptotyphlopidje. 



Rena humilis B. & G. 



A single specimen (No. 18686) was collected in Death Valley, 6 miles 

 from Bennett Wells, by Mr. Palmer, March 25. This is the most north- 

 ern record of the species as well as of the family LeptotypMopidce in 

 North America. The type of this species came from the Colorado 

 Desert. 



Family BoiDiE. 



Charina plumbea (B. & G.). 



The specimen (No. 18685) which Dr. Fisher collected in Kedwood 

 Canon, on the East Fork of the Kaweah Biver, September 12, 1891, is 

 entirely within the limits of the extraordinary variation of this species 

 demonstrated by me some time ago (Proc. IT. S. Nat. Mus., xiii, 1890, 

 p. 177 seqv.), and does not in any way approach either Ch. bottw or 

 Ch. braehyops. It has forty-five scale rows, posterior na"sal not in con- 

 tact with anteorbital; prefrontals not entering orbits; one loreal, four 

 prefrontals, no interuasals, one anteorbital, one supraorbital, three to four 

 postorbitals, no suborbitals, two to three labials in contact with eye. 



Prof. Cope has recently (Proc. IT. S. Nat. Mus., xiv, 1891, p. 593) dis- 

 cussed the status of Ch. plumbea and bottce, without the slightest 

 reference however to my paper quoted above, and comes to the con- 

 clusion that both are identical, chiefly, it seems, on the ground that 

 when he, himself, in 1864, examined the alleged type of de Blainville's 

 Ch. bottw he counted forty-three scale rows. It will be remembered 

 that 1 retained the two species for the reason that both Jan and Bo- 

 court count thirty -nine scale rows as against a minimum of forty-three 

 in twenty specimens of Ch. plumbea.* There seems to be good ground 

 for doubting that the specimen which Cope examined really was the 

 type and the same specimen which Jan and Bocourt have described 

 and figured in detail. Moreover, some of Prof. Cope's notes concern- 

 ing this matter (Z. c.) are not calculated to inspire confidence in the 

 exactness of all the statements. 



Consequently I can see no reason for changing my views of three 

 years ago, viz, that there is as yet no good reason for uniting .the two 

 species. 



Family Natricid^. 



Diadophis pulchellus B. & G. 



I have seen no intergradation between this form and D. amabilis 

 which would justify a trinominal appellation for the present. 



*Cope (L c.) calls attention to Bocourt's lapsus of giving twenty-nine scale rows. 

 That it is a lapsus is evident from Bocourt's comparison of the two species^ in which 

 he distinctly credits Ch. tottce with thirty-nine. 



