. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian Institution. Archives; Discoveries in science. 764 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSRUM, 1898. bright yellow, aud sometimes even red. It may also liaj)peu tliat, by the confluence and extension of the darker margins, we have light bars on a dark gronnd, as on a specimen from the Scioto Valley, Ohio, where, with the other characters similar, the color is of a dark brown above and on the sides, with transversely (luadrate brownish ash-col- ored spots along the back, some one and a half or two scales
. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian Institution. Archives; Discoveries in science. 764 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSRUM, 1898. bright yellow, aud sometimes even red. It may also liaj)peu tliat, by the confluence and extension of the darker margins, we have light bars on a dark gronnd, as on a specimen from the Scioto Valley, Ohio, where, with the other characters similar, the color is of a dark brown above and on the sides, with transversely (luadrate brownish ash-col- ored spots along the back, some one and a half or two scales long, nine or ten wide, and at intervals of about three scales. Of these spots there are twenty eight from head to anus, and about nine on the tail, wheic they form half rings, with intervals a little larger than them- selves. About forty specimens display the normal col- oration. In eleven the lateral spots of the first row join the spots of the median row, inclosing the light intervening dorsal spaces as spots. In four other specimens this fusion is imperfect. The light spots have ac- quired so dark a shade as to have disappeared in the black color variety, called by Dr. Holbrook Heterodon niger. Among numerous specimens of this form in the national collection there are two (Cat. Nos. 1168 and 9105) in which traces of the usual spots remain. One specimen of this form is a true lead color, with a black band extending posterior to the orbit (Cat. No. 16189). The specimens on which Baird and Girard proposed the name Hete- rodon atnioides differ from the normal form in a less production of the free acute edge of the rostral plate. No other character reenforces this peculiarity, and it intergrades with the usual type. It can be looked upon only as an individual characteristic. Individuals of this kind are more frequently sent from the eastern part of the Austroriparian region than elsewhere. The specimen on which the H. cognatus (Cat. No. 1271; Indianola, Texas) was proposed by B
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