RE\aSION OF THE KING SNAKES. 207 



but he referred it to the form described as Coluber coccineus by 

 Latreille (Sonini and Latreille, 1799; 138), in the belief that the latter 

 had had the same thing that he (Schlegel) had but erroneously thought 

 it to be the Coluber coccinea of Blumenbach (1788, 11). As a matter 

 of fact, there can be no doubt that LatreiUe had only Blumenbach's 

 coccinea, and this, as is well known, is the CempTiora coccinea that 

 we know to-day, and which is a very different snake from our L, 

 elapsoides, but one that presents an unusually strong superficial resem- 

 blance to it. Therefore, since Schlegel refers his coccinea to Latreille's, 

 and since the latter was plainly a very different thing, the name coc- 

 cinea Schlegel is a synonym of Cemoplwra coccinea (Blumenbach). 



Description. — This form is the smallest of the genus and the most 

 removed structurally from the ancestral type. The scuteUation, based 

 upon 83 specimens, is as foUows: Ventral plates, 152 to 193, average 

 about 175; caudals, 32 to 48 (males, 38 to 48, average 42; females 

 32 to 42, average 37.5); supralabials, 7; infralabials, 8, sometimes 9, 

 rarely 7; 1 preocular; 2, very rarely 1 or 3, postocidars; temporals,, 

 1+2 + 3, occasionally an additional scute in one of the rows; pos- 

 terior chin shields usually in contact, shorter than or about as long 

 as the anterior; loreal decidedly longer than high, or entirely replaced 

 by a downward extension of the prefrontal; scale rows usually 

 17-19-17, sometimes 19-17, or 17-19-17-15 or 17-15, very rarely 

 reaching 21, always having at least as few as 19 rows on the neck 

 and never ending with more than 17. 



Plead but slightly distinct from the neck; body slender, somevfhat 

 compressed, varying but little in diameter, sides meeting belly in a 

 well-defined angle; tail slender, tapering, 0.118 to 0.169 of the total 

 length (males, 0.129 to 0.169, average 0.149; females, 0.118 to 0.147, 

 average 0.135). The largest specimen examined measured 599 mm, 

 and came from the Okefinokee Swamp in southern Georgia. 



The pattern is made up of 15 to 25 pairs of black rings encircling 

 the body from head to tip of tail. These border narrower rings of 

 yellow (Brown, 1901, 74, says ''white in the young, yellow in adults '0 

 and are separated by broader ones of red. The black rings are a 

 little wider on the dorsal line and sometimes meet here across the 

 red; they become narrower on the first row of scales and usually 

 extend across the belly, but if interrupted, here, they extend at least 

 onto the ends of the ventrals. The yellow rings are about IJ to 2 

 scales wide on the middorsal line and 2 to 4 on the first row of scales;: 

 they are complete on the belly or partially interrupted by a black 

 spot; on the sides they are often more or less mottled v,dth darker .- 

 The red bands average to be about as wide as the groups of black and 

 yellow rings that separate them; they are complete on the belly^ 

 although sometimes slightly mottled or spotted there with black. 



