Plates 174, scales —
| ft. | in. | |
|---|---|---|
| Total length | 3 | 4½ |
| Tail | 85⁄8 | |
| Head, to the tip of the maxillary bones | 13⁄20 | |
| Another specimen, plates 130, scales 91. | ||
| Total length | 3 | 113⁄8 |
| Tail | 11½ |
Three specimens were found. The inferior surface of one was immaculate, but that of the smaller one had on each side of the plates an obsolete double series of reddish-brown spots, irregularly alternate on each side; these were so indistinct as not to be noticed at the first glance of the eye. The tip of the tail in this last is deficient.
2. Coluber parietalis.—Above blackish, with three yellowish fillets, and about eighty red concealed spots; beneath bluish; a series of black dots each side.
Description. Body above black-brown, a vertebral greenish yellow vitta, and a lateral pale yellow one, beneath which is a fuliginous shade; between the dorsal and lateral vitta are about eighty concealed red spots or semifasciæ, formed upon the skin and lateral margins of the scales, obsolete towards the cloaca, at which the series terminates; scales elongated, all carinate, and slightly reflexed at the lateral edges; head dark olive, beneath white, parietal plates with a double white spot at the middle of the suture; intermaxillary plate subhexagonal, emarginate at the mouth, and at tip hardly angulated, almost rounded in that part, transverse diameter nearly double the longitudinal; superior maxillary plates white, intermediate sutures blackish; eye yellowish, pupil black, posterior canthus two-scaled, beneath bluish green, a longitudinal series of black dots each side at the base of the scuta, terminating at the cloaca.
Plates 165, scales 88.
| ft. | in. | |
|---|---|---|
| Total length | 1 | 33⁄10 |
| Tail | 49⁄10 |
This is a common serpent in this section of country. In order to render the lateral red spots very apparent, it is necessary to dilate the skin, when they exhibit a very striking character, being of a vermilion red. It varies in having the lateral series of red spots alternating with a series of smaller red spots nearer to the dorsal line.
In common with ordinatus it has a double common white spot on the parietal plates, and a series of black spots on each side of the interior surface of the body; but in addition to the proportions of plates, and scales, and length of tail, the red colour of the lateral concealed spots very sufficiently denotes its specific dissimilarity from that most common of the serpents of the United States.
3. Coluber proximus.—Body above black, trilineate, vertebral line ocraceous, lateral one yellowish, a double white spot on the parietal plates.