OCR Text |
Show 852 APP2KDIX C.- B5P$ ILHS. from the body hy a contracted neck. > The vertical plate is elongated and contracted on its middle. The posterior pair of frontal plates has almost twice - the si* e of the anterior pair. The eyes are proportionally very large, protected ]> eloW by the fourth and fifth labial shields, anteriorly by a large a& d'a. small orbital plate, and posteriorly by two of nearly the same site, if nbt of the same shape. The loral is proportionally very grach developed* The nostrils are prominent. There are eight labial plates to the upper jaw and seven to the lower. ' The scales are siqooth, elongated on the back, . and posteriorly pointed, while on the sides they are broader, and the row contiguous to the - ventral shield is coftnpotfed of scales broader1 than long. On the posterior part of the head, as usual, the scales are subciroular, or polygonal, and much the smallest. On the tail they assume rather a lozenge shape.* There are one hundred and seventy- five ventral shields from the throat to the vent. The colour is brown aboye and yellow- underneath, with a bluish tint along the sides of the abdominal region. Oj* the back there is a row of transversely elongated patches of deep brown, bordered with black.' The sides are spotted with three indistinct rows of ' small spots of brown and black intermixed! This species was found by Captain: Howard Sttasbury's party, in the valley of the Great Salt Lake. * ' HETORODON NASICUS, Baird and Girard. SPKO. CHAR.- Minute and numerous frontal plates instead of ticq large pairs; two brown stripes over the head; temporal patch Terr broad. The essential character which distinguishes this, species from the J9T. platyrhinoB and H. simusy which it most resenfbles, consists in the presence of numerous small scales between the vertical and rostral plates; that is, on the space which is occupied by the two pairs of frontal plates. In H. rimus, it is true, very minute scales m& y be occasionally observed on the middle line between the vertical, rostral, and frontal plates; but when this is the case, the latter are Hot reduced to the small site which they have in the species which we here describe. The vertical plate in JBT. naiicus is circularly subhexagonal. The superciliaries are longer than the vertical, and thus longer thfflv broad, while the occipital are broader; than long. The hasal |