AUSTRALIAN SNAKES. 75 



Forde's Dwakf Snake. Cacophis fordei. 



(Plate XII, figs. 8, 8a.) 

 Cacophis fordoi, Krefft, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1869. 



Scales in 15 rows. 



Abdominal plates, 167 to 172. 



Subcaudals in two series, 30/36. 



Two anal plates. 



Total length, 13 inches. 



Head, ^ inch. 



Tail, If inch. 

 Body elongate and rounded, head rather small, not distinct from 

 trunk, flat, regularly shielded ; vertical moderate, with a very sharp angle 

 behind ; superciliaries much smaller ; occipitals slightly larger than the 

 vertical ; rostral rather depressed, with a groove on its lower edge ; one 

 anterior, two posterior oculars ; one large and elongate temporal shield 

 with two others behind, the upper one being nearly as large as the first 

 temporal. Six upper labials, the third and fourth coming into the orbit ; 

 these shields increase from the first to the last, which is the largest. The 

 lower labials are also six in number ; the eye is small, with rounded pupil. 



Scales hexagonal, about as broad as they are long, except the upper 

 rows on the back, wliich are more elongate. The head is scarcely distin- 

 guishable from the body, and for one-fourth of the snake's whole length there 

 is no increase in size ; the body then gradually enlarges, being much stouter 

 posteriorly, with a short and very distinct tail. In young and half-grown 

 individuals, these characters are not so clearly defined, the tail is nearly of 

 the same size as in the adult, rather stout, but distinct from the body. 

 The general color is a kind of sepia brown above in adults, much lighter 

 anteriorly, a white or yellowish collar dividing the head from the neck. 

 This collar commences at the last labial shield, covers five scales in length, 

 by one or (at the angle) two scales wide ; it then crosses the neck, the 

 width of a scale or less, and joins the opposite angle. The shields on the 

 side of the face are all more or less spotted with white, including the outer 

 edges of the superciliaries, the rostral, and the first pair of frontals. The 

 general color of the body which covers the outer margins of every abdominal 

 plate, is rather jagged and irregular in the middle, but sharply defined on 

 the sides, particularly in young individuals ; the inner margins of the two- 

 rowed subcaudals are marked in the same way to the tip. The abdominal 



