REVISION OF THE KING SNAKES. 103 



LAMPROPELTIS CALIFORNIAE NITIDA (Van Denburgh). 



1887. Ophibolus califomiae Cope, Bull. U. S. Nat. Miis., no. 32, p. 79. 



1895. Lampropeltis nitida Van Denburgh, Proc. California iVcad. Sci., ser. 2, 



vol. 5, pt. 1, p. 143, pi. 14 (type locality, San Jose del Cabo, Lower 



California; type, California Academy of Science collection, No. 800; 



Gustav Eisen, collector). — Stejneger and Barbour, Check List, 1917, 



p. 88. 



Description. — Since no specimen of this form has been examined 

 by the writer, the original description is quoted in full: 



Allied to L. califomiae, but with the gastrosteges, urosteges, and upper surfaces of 

 head and snout, entirely brownish black. 



The head is slightly distinct, considerably depressed, its plates normal; 1 loreal; 

 1 pre- and 2 postoculars; scales in 23 rows, smooth, with 2 apical pits; postgeneials 

 very small; anal entire; seven superior labials, the third and fourth entering the orbit; 

 227 gastrosteges; 56 pairs of urosteges. 



The back and sides are blackish brown; the former, with a rather indistinct longi- 

 tudinal line composed of cinnamon colored spots upon the centers of the scales of 

 the median series, and upon the inner edges of those forming the first row on each 

 side of this series; the latter, with a few scales of the first and second rows dotted, 

 centrally, with cinnamon or yellowish white. A band of cinnamon crosses the nape. 

 The gulars, geneials, and inferior labials, are blackish brown with paler centers. 

 The plates on the top and sides of the head are brownish black, with faintly indicated 

 dots of raw umber upon the loreal, pre-, and postocular plates, and near the posterior 

 edges of the supraoculars and parietals. There are 6 cinnamon colored blotches on 

 the upper surface of the tail. The gastrosteges and urosteges are entirely brownish 

 black, with the exception of the first 10 gastrosteges, which show faint cinnamon 

 colored dots. 



Total length 965 mm. Tail 125 mm. 



A small specimen (290 mm.) has, on the sides, rather numerous cinnamon colored 

 blotches or enlargements of a similarly colored longitudinal line. This line is of 

 about the width of one row of scales, and occupies the tips of the gastrosteges and the 

 lower half of each scale of the first series. 



Remarks. — Only the two specimens described above are known. 

 They are of great interest, however, for they prove the occurrence in 

 the Cape Kegion of an ally of mliforniae paralleling in every way the 

 case of loylii and conjuncta. Since there is good reason to believe, 

 from its present distribution, that califomiae never reached southern 

 Arizona, its derivative, nitida, must have attained the Cape by way 

 of the pensinsula of I^ower California, and not by way of Sonora and 

 the islands of the Gulf of California. This is an argument in favor of 

 the feasibility of the former route for conjuncta, thereby favoring 

 its derivation from hoylii instead of from yumensis; and it also 

 favors the specific distinctness of califomiae from hoylii, as it shows 

 the same situation to hold at Cape San Lucas with respect to these 

 two forms as obtains in the vicinity of San Diego County, California. 



