Malayan Peninsula and Islands. 101 



Numbers of this species may be seen in rivers, as well as in irrigated 

 fields and estuaries, preying upon fishes, which however it refuses in a 

 state of captivity. It is of timid and peaceful habits. A large female, 

 after having been confined upwards of six months in a glass vessel 

 filled with water, brought forth eleven young ones in the manner noted 

 above under Acrochordus javanicus. During the process she lay motion- 

 less on the bottom of the vessel, the anterior part of the abdomen was 

 retracted towards the vertebral column, while the muscles of the pos- 

 terior part were in activity. Shortly after the parturition she expired 

 under a few spasmodic movements, and also two of the young ones 

 died in the course of about two hours, after having, like the rest, shed 

 the integuments. In length they varied from 6 inches to 6£. The 

 living nine presented a singular appearance : they remained a little way 

 below the surface of the water coiling themselves round the body of 

 an adult male, which was also kept in the vessel, occasionally lifting 

 the heads above the surface to breathe, at the same time resisting the 

 efforts of the senior to free himself. Fishes and aquatic insects were 

 refused, in consequence of which the young ones expired from inanition 

 in the course of less than two months. 



HoMALOPSIS PLUMBEA, Boie. 



Syn. — Hypsirhina, Wagler. 



Hypsirhina hardwickii, Gray: Illust. Ind. Zool. 

 Homalopsis plumbea, Scklegel. 



Iridescent dark brownish-or greyish-olive above, uniformly or with 

 small irregular black spots ; the two or three lowest series of scales 

 yellowish, each scale spotted or edged with brown ; lips and throat 

 yellow ; scuta and scutella yellowish white, the former in some partial- 

 ly edged with black, the latter with a black central zig-zag line ; iris 

 grey ; pupil elliptical, vertically contracted by the light ; tongue whit- 

 ish. 



Scuta 125 to 126 ; Scutella 36 to 44. 



Habit.' — Pinang. 

 Java. 

 The head is broad, ovate, depressed ; the muzzle blunt, the nostrils 

 small triangular, with a slit towards the lower margin of the nasal ; the 

 single anterior frontal broad triangular ; the rest of the crown shields 

 are of normal form. The eye is small, placed in a half lateral half 



