232 Zoological Society : — 



How greatly different the view gained by a consideration of the 

 geogra])hical distribution of the Batrachians is, we shall see in the 

 Second Part of this paper. Our knowledge of the Hcrpetology of 

 Celebes is yet too limited to allow a satisfactory attempt to compare 

 its fauna with that of other parts. 



IV. Australian or Eastern Palceotropical Region (Regio 

 Australiana). 



Characteristic forms. — Morelia, Liasis, Nardoa, Enygrus, Bo- 

 lyeritty Myron, GlyjpTiodon, Diemansia, Hoplocephalus, Fseudechis, 

 Pseudonaja, Brachysoma, Vermicella, Acanthophis, 



Forms common to other regions. — Cerberus, Bendrophis, Bipsas, 

 Hydrides . 



"What I have said in the beginning of my notices on the -Ethio- 

 pian region I can as justly repeat respecting this part of the globe, 

 the borders only of which are known to us ; so that the propor- 

 tionate numbers here given will be far from the truth, and can be 

 considered only as proportionate to our present knowledge. If we 

 allow 50 species as peculiar to this region, and take the area of dry 

 land at 3,000,000 square miles, we have on an average a single species 

 to every 60,000 square miles, or 2^ species for the same area in the 

 ^Ethiopian ; but the Indian region is richer, giving 3^^ species for the 

 same area in which we have only one in the Australian. 



We find a peculiar cha/acter of this region in the ratio between 

 the numbers of species in the different sections of the Snakes. Two- 

 thirds are venomous snakes — a disproportion not to be found again 

 in any of the other regions, where the number of innocuous snakes 

 always greatly predominates ; secondly, two-thirds of the non- 

 venomous snakes are Boidce ; thirdly, there is only one genus 

 (Acanthophis antarctica) belonging to the tribe of Viperina, the 

 whole of the other venomous snakes being constituted by Colu- 

 brina with grooved fangs. AVe know only six non-venomous Colu- 

 brina from New Holland, two of which (Coronella australis and 

 Tropidonotus picturatus) belong to cosmopolitan genera, the third 

 (Bipsas fusca) to a tropicopolitan genus, the fourth and fifth (Ben- 

 drophis punctulata and Cerberus australis) to East Indian ones : for 

 the sixth {Myron Richardsonii) a separate genus was established ; 

 but it is closely allied to the East Indian Hypsh^hina. The genus 

 Elaps, represented by a different form, Vermicella, is so far from being 

 capable of being united with the East Indian forms, that it is nearer 

 to those of the Neotropical region. Thus, if we except three species 

 and the Hydridce, which are subjected to totally distinct physical 

 conditions, we have in the eastern Palaeotropical region a fauna of 

 Ophidians as widely different from the nearest one of the East Indies 

 as from all the other ones. It must be mentioned, that there is no 

 snake known for the present from New Zealand. I say, for the 

 present ; for, not many years since, a total absence of Serpents in all 

 the numerous isles of the Pacific Ocean was believed in. 



