viii REMARKS ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF 



must mention especially those the affinity of which is African : ChamaJeo vulgaris is more 

 frequent than in Ceylon ; a species of Eryx, Echis, PsammopMs, and Pyxicephalus are common, 

 and, singularly, so similar to their congeners from Africa, that it requires some attention 

 to distinguish them ; Zamenis fasciolatus is the southernmost species of a Mediterranean 

 genus. On the other hand, we find some decidedly Archipelagic types : a Dragon occurs, 

 strangely enough, on the west coast; CallopMs finds here its western limits; and, finally, 

 Oligodon, which extends from the larger islands of the western Archipelago, over Ceylon to 

 the Deccan, has here its real centre. 



The collection made by Colonel Sykes in the Deccan is still the only one of any import- 

 ance made in that district ; and it appears from it, and from what we gather from other 

 sources, that it contains a sufiicient number of peculiar forms to distinguish the Deccan as a 

 separate province, but we cannot arrive at any conclusion as to its limits, the immense tract 

 between it and the upper Gangetic plain being herpetologically unknown. The African 

 types which we have noticed in the more southern province persist in the Deccan, and are 

 increased in number towards the north-west. 



The Reptilian faunae of the two immense plains formed by the Indus and by the Ganges 

 present entirely difierent features, though both are inhabited by the small number of such 

 species as are spread over nearly the whole, and characteristic of the Indian region generally, 

 like Tropiclonottis quincundafus, Naja tripudians, &c. The fauna of Sindh assumes an Indo- 

 African character, extending for some distance southwards along the coast of Concan. Its 

 southern and eastern limits are marked by TJromastix and by Zamenis diadema, the eastern 

 representative of the African Z. cliffordii. Here, in Sindh and in the Punjab, disappear 

 Naja tripiidians and Tropidonotiis stolatus ; and when we pass into Afghanistan we find very 

 few of its reptiles identical with those of India proper, Euprepes rufescens and Calotes 

 versicolor being the only remnants of the Saurians, Tropidonotus quineunciatus of the Ophi- 

 dians, whilst a species of Polypedates and of Bhacopliorns remind us of the Indian Batrachians, 

 all the other reptiles belonging either to North-African or Central-Asiatic types. 



The Reptilian fauna of Bengal is, as may be expected, well known. Herpetologically, this 

 province extends beyond its political boundaries, including the upper Gangetic plain, and 

 reaching southwards along the western shores of the Bay of Bengal to about 20° N. lat. ; its 

 northern boundaries are the Himalayas, where the fauna is gradually changed at an altitude 

 of about 4000 feet above the level of the sea. Although there are several species peculiar 

 to this province, like Emys thurgi, Emys hamiltonii, Gavialis gangeticus, Ferania, yet the 

 features of its fauna are of a plain and rather uniform character, not relieved by forms which 

 would awaken particular interest by their divergence from the ordinary Reptilian types or 

 by their affinities with distant regions. This, of course, is quite in accordance with the 

 vmiformity of its physical features and with its central position. Thus, its fauna is chiefly 

 composed of the common species ranging over a greater or smaller part of the other pro"\inces. 

 Archipelagic types are very scarce ; Passerita is lost on its south-western borders and now 

 replaced by Tragops prasimis, which extends over entire Eastern India. Dipsas has become 

 more numerous, there being five species known from this province alone. 



The Reptilian fauna of the Himalayas is distinguished less by the appearance of forms 

 similar to, or identical with, those of the neighbouring temperate region, than by the 

 appearance of a great number of new species and genera peculiar and confined to the 



