MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



501 



precipice, and there he found the three bodies shattered almost beyond re- 

 cognition. He added that the Lammergeyers had already got at them. 



W. OSBORN, Lieut.-General, i.a. 

 Naggur, Kulu Punjab, 12th January 1908. 



No. XVI.— REMARKS UPON THE SNAKE CONTIA ANGUSTICEPS. 



I am much indebted to Mr. R. A. Spence who has submitted for my exami- 

 nation two specimens of the little snake Contia angusticeps sent to the Society's 

 collection by Sir H. McMahon, with the request that I would write a descrip- 

 tion of this little known snake. Reference to Mr. Boulenger's Catalogue 

 (Vol. II, 1894, p. 262) shows that at the time he wrote a single specimen only 

 was known which was in the Indian Museum. This was sent to him for 

 inspection by Mr. Sclater. His earlier work Fauna. Brit. Ind. — Reptilia and 

 Batrachia (1890) made no reference to this snake. The specimens sent to 

 Mr. Boulenger was procured from Cherat, Baluchistan. 



Since this from 1899 to 1900 Sir H. McMahon acquired eleven specimens in 

 the Malakand, and he says in a letter addressed to this Society : " This little 

 snake is fairly common in one restricted locality, i. e., the hill slope a few yards 

 below and N.-W. of the Political Agent's house." 



A brief allusion to these specimens was contributed to this Society by 

 Sir H. McMahon himself which appeared in our Journal Vol. XIV, page 181. 



Some of these specimens were given to the British Museum. The only 

 examples I saw there in 1903 were 3 in number and all presented by 

 Sir H. McMahon. In 1904 Dr. N. Annandale made a brief allusion to 5 speci- 

 mens in the Indian Museum received from Sir H. McMahon, and he figured one 

 (Plate XI, fig. 1) in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1904. He 

 mentions here that the type specimen has been lost. 



The only other specimens I know of are the two now submitted to me. 



For those who have 

 not access to Mr. Bou- 

 lenger's Catalogue I 

 venture to describe 

 the snake again. 



Rostral : Touches 6 

 shields, the sutures it 

 makes with the an- 

 terior nasals rather 

 greater than with the 

 internasals, nearly 

 twice as long as those 

 made with first labials. 

 Internasals : A pair ; 

 the suture between 

 them rather longe r 



Contia anjricslicty/t 



f> 



rom. a s/iecimen I/i 



