VIPERA LOPIIOPHRYS. 
flexible. In the specimen described, the length from the nose to the tail is 
17 inches, and the length of the tail 2 inches 2 lines. The abdominal plates 
are 131 ; the subcaudal scales 28. 
Vipera cornuta and V. lophophrys are, without doubt, identical; the latter is simply either 
the reptile of a more advanced age, or a variety peculiar to certain locaht.es. The result of 
mv experience inclines me to the latter conclusion, as I have never heard of specimens of 
V. lophophrys having been procured beyond the limits of Namaqua-land, a d»tnet of the 
western and southern division of the Colony. Even in that district examples are rarely to be 
procured; and though I was many months exploring in it, I only met with two indivi ua s 
and those were in fellowship, of equal size, marked exactly alike, and proved to be male and 
female. Those specimens I subsequently showed to the natives of other parts of South Africa, 
and received for answer, that they were the Hornsman, but of a different kind to that known o 
them, it being understood that the kind they spoke of, as that with which they were acquainted, 
was the V. cornuta. Upon these grounds I regard it as a variety of the locality mentioned. 
On close examination of the two kinds or varieties, some individual differences are. discovered, 
which, if they were permanent, might be regarded as indicating them to be of two species ; but 
that not being the case, and as it appears the like variations occur even in the same variety, 
they cannot be regarded as suited to furnish specific characters. In the Vipera cornuta which 
is described, the rows of scales on the body consist of twenty-five, but in others I have 
counted only twenty-three. Hence, nothing important can be attached to there being twenty- 
seven in V. lophophrys. 
