TRIMERORHINUS RHOMBEATUS. 
stripes, which generally commence about the middle of the body, sometimes 
extend almost to the point of the tail. From the eye a stripe of the same 
colour as the spots of the back, extends backwards to the neck, and in many 
specimens inclines inwards and joins its fellow of the opposite side, and so 
forms, on the hinder part of the head, a mark of a shape like a horse-shoe. 
Besides these spots and stripes, there is also on each side a narrow livid- 
greenish line, extending from head to anus, along the row of scales nearest to 
the abdominal plates ; eyes brown. 
Form, &c. — Head rather small, subquadrangular, the temples bulged, 
the hind head rather broader than the neck, the nose pointed ; the loral plate 
quadrangular; the preocular plate narrow inferiorly, broad and subquad- 
rangular superiorly ; plates of upper lip, exclusive of rostral, eight ; of lower, 
not including mental, eleven ; temporal plate long and irregidarly six-sided ; 
rostral plate narrow superiorly, and reaches to the anterior edge of the fronto- 
nasal plates, inferiorly rather broad and the under surface concave ; frontal 
plate long and five-sided, the two sides forming the hinder extremity short, 
and only slightly inclined backwards. Body subcylindrical, inferiorly rather 
flattened ; the scales long, narrow, subovate, much imbricate, and arranged 
in seventeen oblique transverse rows ; tail long, cylindrical, and tapered to a 
point, which consists of a horny subacute spine. Abdominal plates 168 to 170. 
Subcaudal scales 70 to 75. Length of some specimens, 24 inches, of which the 
tail generally measures about 6 inches, or one-fourth of the total length. 
This snake occurs throughout the whole of Southern Africa, and is generally found in dry 
barren situations, but not unfrequently also in grassy districts. It moves from place to place 
with great rapidity, and feeds on insects and reptiles of a size it can secure and devour, such 
as the small lizards which abound in the situations in which it is common. 
The form of the rostral plate and its extension on the head, till it reaches the fronto-nasal 
plates are, in conjunction with the mode in which the nostrils are formed, characters which at 
once denote the genus. 
The Schaap Sticker varies considerably in colour, and the markings differ in different indivi- 
duals. In young examples, the spots on the body are more regular and better defined than in 
those of advanced age, the dark rings are less manifest, and the ground colour is commonly 
pale yellowish-grey. In the young, and also in the adults, the colour of the belly and under 
surface of the tail is often of a livid greenish tint, and variegated with dark blackish -green 
blotches, as already noticed. 
