68 REPTILIA. 



reptile of the French Sugar islands; it is yellowish or greyish, 

 more or less varied with brownish, and attains the length of six 

 feet; it lives among the sugar-canes, where it feeds on rats and 

 occasions the death of many of the slaves.(l) 

 The head of some of these Trigonocephali with double subcau- 

 dal scales is furnished with plates. (2) 



Others, along with the small scales on the head, have double 

 plates beneath the tail, with the exception of the very extremity, 

 which is merely furnished above and beneath with small imbricated 

 scales, and terminates in a little spur.(3) Of this number is the 



Crot. miitiis, L. ; Col. alecto, Sh.; Seb. II, Ixxvi, 1; Lachesis 

 rhombeata, Pr. Max. No. V. Yellowish; the back marked with 

 large black or brown lozenges; scales raised in the middle. It 

 is found six and seven feet long, and is quite as formidable as 

 the Rattlesnake. 



ViPERA, Daud. 



The Vipers, most of which were confounded with the Colubers by 

 Linnaeus, on account of their double sub-caudal plates, require to 

 be separated from them from the circumstance of their having poi- 

 sonous fangs. There are also some serpents which naturally belong 

 to this 'division, whose sub-caudal plates are either wholly or par- 

 tially simple. They are all distinguished from the Rattlesnakes and 

 the Trigonocephali by the absence of the pits behind the nostrils. 



In some the head is only furnished with imbricated and carinated 

 scales like those on the back. (4) Such is 



Vip. brachyura, Cuv.; Seb. II, xxx, 1. (The Minute Viper.) 



The intensity and activity of its poison render it one of the 



most terrible of the genus. (5) 



(1) Here comes the Trim^resure vert, Lacep , An. Mus. IV, Ivi, 2, oi' Boodropam, 

 llussel, Serp. Corom., IX, which sometimes has two or three entire plates under 

 the root of the tail; this, however, is but an individual accident. Add, Cophias 

 billneatus, Pr. Max. No. V; C. atrox; C.jacaraca. 



(2) Fitzinger appropriates the name of Tbigonocephalus to this subdivision. 



(3) It is the genus Lachesis, Daud., adopted by Fitzinger, but badly charac- 

 terized; the sub-caudal plates are certainly double, almost to the very end, 

 where there is nothing but very small scales. Pr. Max. gives a correct view of it. 



(4) This, with the following division, forms the subgenus Echidna of Merrem, 

 which, with his Echis, of which we shall speak hereafter, composes his genus Vi- 

 FERA. Fitzinger arranges our three first divisions in three genera, which he names 

 ViPERA, Cobra, and Aspis. 



(5) Add the Aspic. Lacep- II, ii, 1 [Vip. ocellata. Lath.), a large species allied to 

 the cr/rojaos, Lin. Mus. Ad. Fred. XIII; but very different from the a^/Jis of Linnjeus, 

 which is a mere variety of the common species; Vip. Clotho, Seb. II, xciii, 1; 

 Vip. lachesis. Id., XCIV, 2; the Dahoie, Lacep., II, xiii, 2, or the brasilienne. Id. 



IV, 1; the Vip. elegante, Daud., Russel, VII, &c. 



