Shot at Belle Fontain on the Missouri. Many specimens were obtained. The auriculars of the female are yellowish-brown. They run upon the ground like a lark, seldom fly into a tree, and sing sweetly. They were subsequently observed at Engineer Cantonment.—James.
[163] Coluber obsoletus, Say.—Body black above, beneath whitish, with large subquadrate black spots, which are confluent, and pale bluish towards the tail; throat and neck pure white; sides between the scales with red marks.
Description. Body black, anterior half with a series of continuous, dilated dull-red large circles, formed upon the skin between the scales, on the side; on many of the scales, are white marginal dashes near their bases: these scales are placed in groups each side of the vertebræ of the anterior moiety of the body; scales bipunctured at tip; beneath flat, so as to produce an angle or carnia each side; white slightly tinged with yellowish red, irrorate with black points, and spotted with large oblong quadrate marks, which gradually become more continuous, confluent and plumbeous towards the tail, occupying nearly the whole surface; head beneath and throat pure white; posterior canthus of the eye two-scaled; iris blackish; pupil deep-blued black, enclosed by a silvery line.
| One specimen, | Pl. 228 — Sc. 67 ? |
| Another specimen | Pl. 233 — Sc. 84 |
| Another specimen | Pl. 228 — Sc. 84 |
| Total length — | 4 feet 115⁄8 inches. |
| Tail length | 4 feet 101⁄8 inches. |
The lateral red marks are not perceptible, unless the skin be dilated so as to separate the scales; and the small white marginal lines on the bases of some of the scales are observable only on close inspection. It varies in being nearly or quite destitute of spots on the anterior portion of the body beneath, but the posterior half of the inferior surface still remains blackish. The whole animal bears strong resemblance to C. constrictor; but the scales are decidedly smaller, and the number of its plates and scales approach it still more closely to that uncertain species C. ovivorus. It is not an uncommon species on the Missouri from the vicinity of Isle au Vache to Council Bluff.
Penis terminated by a hemisphere, covered with compressed, white spines, which are reflected at tip; the series interrupted on the posterior side of the member by a canal; it is much dilated, dark reddish brown, abruptly contracted at base from the exterior side, and with a prominent tubercle on the middle of the inner side: length one inch and a quarter, width about seven-sixteenths of an inch.—James.
[164] The Grand Nemahaw, now usually called Big Nemaha, does not rise so far to the west as is here implied. Its sources are in Lancaster County, Nebraska, almost directly north of the mouth of Republican River. The confluence of the Big Nemaha is just above the Kansas-Nebraska line.
There are two streams (Big and Little) called Tarkio Creek. They flow parallel through Atchison and Holt counties, Missouri. The mouth of the Big Tarkio is opposite that of the Big Nemaha; that of the Little Tarkio is now about eleven miles below, but the channel is very changeable. Tarkio is said to mean "full of walnuts."—Ed.
[165] The Little Nemaha flows through the Nebraska county of the same name; its mouth is between the towns of Aspinwall and Nemaha.—Ed.
[166] Nishnabotna is an Indian word signifying "canoe making river." Fifteen years earlier, Lewis and Clark found the divide between the rivers about three hundred yards wide. At that time the mouth of the Nishnabotna was on the line between Atchison and Holt counties, Missouri. Since then its waters have found their way across Grand Pass, and the old channel below that point has been abandoned. In 1804 the main current of the Missouri ran north of L'Isle Chauve (Bald Island), the middle of which lay opposite Grand Pass. The channel now runs south of this island, while the Nishnabotna, reaching the old channel of the Missouri at the middle of the island, follows it to the confluence of the island's foot. This was the condition in 1879 (see Map of the Missouri River, from the government survey, plates xx and xxi), but the channels are constantly shifting.—Ed.