THE COMMON INDIAN SNAKEtS. 809 



instead of straight, and thus constitute a form transitional between 

 Varieties A and B. 



Variety (B) (= the ornata of Gray, the maculata of Jan, and 

 Varieties A and B of Boulenger's Catalogue). In this the dorsal 

 stripe is broken up into cross-bars in the whole body length, or 

 for a variable extent posteriorly and a series of spots costally 

 alternates with the bars. It is a rare form known from Borneo, 

 but dubiously from our coasts. 



Variety (D) (= Variety D of Boulenger's Catalogue). Like 

 Variety A, but the yellow is replaced by a khaki hue. In some 

 the hues are separated by a yellow line. I saw three such with a 

 yellow line from Ceylon in the Colombo Museum, and there is one 

 from Bombay m the British Miiseum. One without the yellow 

 line in the Indian Museum is from Travancore, and there is 

 another m the Colombo Miiseum from Ceylon. 



Variety {E) (^ Variety G of Boulenger's Catalogue). The name 

 jpalUdus would suit this form. It difiers only from Variety A in 

 that the sides and belly are whitish or greyish, and the 

 dorsal stripe and caudal marks are much paler than normal, 

 indeed these may be almost obsolescent. Such a specimen from 

 Travancore is ia the British Museum. Probably a specimen I 

 saw in the Colombo Museum from Ceylon, another in the Indian 

 Museum from the Persian Gulf, and a third in the Bombay Natural 

 History Society's collection from Bombay, all of which I took at 

 first to be very faded specimens, belong to this variety. The last 

 is so pale, and the vertebral stripe so extremely indistinct ; I 

 regarded it dubiously as an albino. Father Dreckman in 1913 

 wrote to me of a somewhat similar specimen he had recently 

 acquired near Bandora on the Bombay coast. This was a light grey 

 colour with a somewhat darker vertebral stripe. The tail had the 

 usual characteristic black marks. 



Breeding. — As far as I am aware no breeding events liave been 

 published, and I have never seen a gravid specimen myself. It is 

 probably viviparous in habit like other sea snakes. 



Poison. — In " Land and Water" (Nov. 15th, 1879) is an account 

 of one that climbed up the anchor chain of a man-of-war in the 

 Ganges. An unfortunate midshipman who tried to capture it was 

 bitten and died shortly afterwards. 



Edozoa. — Both Dr. Annandale and Dr. Willey, among others, 

 have remarked upon barnacles that attach themselves to this snake. 

 Dr. Annandale mentions Conchoderma hunteri as one species, and 

 Dr. Willey published an excellent plate of this snake with a 

 cluster of Barnacles of two species, viz., C. hunteri and Lepas 

 ■anserifera clinging to the tail (Spolia Zeylanica, 1900, p. 207, 

 14 



