The young on emerging are highly suggestive of young Grass-snakes in colour and markings, as well as in their much less slender shape as compared with the adult. They measure about 5 inches, and are at once most ready to bite. 12. COLUBER LEOPARDINUS, Bonaparte (_Coluber quadrilineatus_, Pallas) The Leopard Snake _Form._--Slender. Snout obtuse, scarcely prominent. Tail about one-fifth of the total length. _Head-Shields._--Rostral broader than deep, just visible from above. Frontal once and one-third to once and a half as long as broad, as long as its distance from the end of the snout, shorter than the parietals. Loreal longer than deep. One pre- and two postoculars. Temporals 1 + 2 or 2 + 3. Upper labials eight (rarely seven), fourth and fifth (rarely third and fourth) entering the eye. Four or five lower labials in contact with the anterior chin-shields, which are longer than the posterior. _Scales_ smooth, with two apical pits, in twenty-five or twenty-seven rows. Ventral shields rounded, not angulate laterally, 222 to 260; anal divided; subcaudals 68-90. [Illustration: FIG. 25 (after Sordelli)] _Coloration._--Typical form (Plate VII., third figure) greyish or pale brown above, with one dorsal series of dark brown, reddish-brown, or bright red, black-edged transverse spots and a lateral alternating series of smaller black spots with or without lighter centres; usually a [Y]-shaped dark marking on the occiput and nape; a crescentic black band from eye to eye across the prefrontal shields, an oblique black band from behind the eye to the angle of the mouth, and a black spot or vertical bar below the eye. Lower parts white, checkered with black, or nearly entirely black. Iris reddish-golden. In some specimens (var. _quadrilineatus_) the dorsal spots are replaced by two brown or red, black-edged stripes bordering a pale greyish or yellowish vertebral stripe (Plate VII., fourth figure); such specimens are so coloured from birth. This colour variety, which is so strikingly different from the typical form, is connected with the latter by the var. _schwoederi_, Werner, in which the spots form two vertebral series, and the var. _elsneri_, Werner, in which the light vertebral band is broken up by dark transverse bars, producing a ladder-like pattern. _Size._--Rarely exceeding a length of 3 feet. _Distribution._--Southern Italy, Sicily, Malta, Istria, Dalmatia, and other parts of the Balkan Peninsula, Grecian islands, Crimea, Asia Minor. The altitudinal range does not extend beyond 1,600 feet.