WATERS OF WESTERN INDIA. 173 



As for the Fresh-water Snakes proper (the IIomalopsidce\ they 

 are not, as a family, numerous here. This may be surprising to people 

 accustomed to think of the Konkan as a damp and marshy country ; 

 but the truth is that that description only applies to it for five 

 months of the year. From November to May inclusive most of it is 

 a very waterless country indeed to the great suffering of the 

 people. 



An estuarine species (Cerberus rhynchops) literally swarms in the 

 creeks. As you sail up them you see a head popped up here and 

 one there, and as instantly withdrawn, till you wonder what they 

 all find to eat. It is an active reptile ashore as afloat, and the 

 native name is Udhan (=" the Jumper") from its peculiar way of 

 springing forward. The Spotted Water-snake (Tropidonotus quin- 

 cunciatus), which is not a true Water-snake but amphibious, derives 

 from that nature a great advantage here and quite crowds out 

 the Homalopsidffi. I strongly suspect that it fights, and even eats, 

 them, but cannot propose to prove that just yet. 



It has several varieties in colour, varying apparently with the 

 colour and light of the water ; and ashore, it uses the same curious 

 springing motion as the Udhan. It occasionally visits estuaries ; and 

 I have taken small salt-water fish (arius) from the stomachs of indi- 

 viduals taken in nets in such places. So it is not a mere drift of the 

 land-floods, but can forage in salt water. So does T. jpunctulatus.. 



These Fresh-water and Amphibious Snakes are not poisonous. The 

 next family, the Sea-snakes, are all poisonous, though none of them 

 can be called " deadly" in the same sense as the Cobra and Chain- 

 viper, for a fair bite of whom there is no cure. Moreover, their fangs 

 are very short, and a little clothing would guard a man from them. 

 It is an additional reason for always wearing clothes when swimming 

 in tropical waters, in some of which these reptiles swarm, if protec- 

 tion from the sun and from cold on landing be not enough to induce 

 any reasonable man to swim in flannels. Except in racing, or at the 

 moment of leaving the water, these are really no incumbrance at all, 

 floating lighter than the human body. 



Two genera of Sea-snakes, Platurus and Aipysurus, have the same 

 classes of scales as Laud and Fresh-water Snakes; that is, small scales 

 above, and large ventral shields below, the latter acting as feet. 

 I believe that neither genus is represented on our coast. If anywhere, 

 they should be looked for on shores and in marshes, for we may be 

 quite sure that the ventral shields exist in them, as in terrestrial 



