Was he deceived by an erroneous reference to Catesby's figure of this Hog-nose? or by Forster's catalogue? _Coluber punctatus._ A good diagnostic character of this species, in addition to the cervical cestus, rests in the triple series of abdominal dots; but these are often wanting or obsolete in the young specimen, in which state it is probably the _torquatus_ of Shaw. Sometimes the dots are wanting on the neck and near the cloaca; and in one aged individual, the intermediate line occurred double, and confluent on the throat. _Coluber fulvius_, this species is said by Daudin to be closely allied to his _C. coccineus_, notwithstanding the difference in plates and scales. But it is certainly very distinct by other characters, and strikingly so in its perfectly annular black and red bands; the latter are margined with yellowish and spotted with black. A specimen has 224 plates and 32 scales, total length 21 inches, length of the tail 1-9/10 inch. The _coccineus_ has the under part of the body whitish, immaculate. The _fulvius_ seems to belong to the genus _vipera_; it has the fangs, but not the orifice behind the nostril, which communicates with the reservoir of venom, so conspicuous in the _crotali_, &c. _Ophisaurus ventralis._ The tail of this snake not only breaks in pieces when struck with a weapon, but portions of it are thrown off at the will of the serpent. This singular fact I witnessed in Georgia. This is one of the many which are called horn-snakes. A tip of the tail of one of them was once brought to me as having been taken from a recently withered tree, which the bearer assured me was destroyed by the insertion of this formidable instrument, and it was not without considerable difficulty he was convinced of the innocence of the tail, and of having been the dupe of a knave. There seems to be a peculiar character in the mode of imbrication of the scales of this species, each one of these at the lateral edges, passes beneath the lateral scale on one side, and over the edge of the opposite one. It has been described under five different generic names, and four different specific ones.