1^^ PREFACE BY THE TRANSLATOR. 



with such costly illustrations as 421 figures, three se- 

 parate charts, and two tabular views of their distribu- 

 tion and affinities. 



The Translator has therefore restricted himself to 

 the General portion of the work ; and has selected from 

 the excellent plates of his Author 24 figures, each 

 illustrative of one of the genera ; to which he has added 

 two figures, for explaining the modern terminology 

 of the scuta that defend the heads of Serpents ; and like- 

 wise two others, of a remarkable species of Elaps, first 

 described by him in Jameson's Edinburgh Philosophical 

 Journal for 1843. The specimen of this Elaps in his 

 own collection, the Translator believed to be uni(|ue 

 — as his correspondence with M. Schlegel shews that 

 it was unknown to that great ophiologist : but on 

 lately visiting the large, and now well preserved, 

 zoological collection in the British Museum, he found 

 one other specimen, though mutilated, and without any 

 indication of its native country. 



The fear of too much enhancing the price of this 

 volume has prevented the republication of more than 

 one of the Charts — that which shews the Geographical 

 Distribution of the Venomous Snakes. 



The Translator has also added, in different parts of 

 the book, a few notes ; which are distinguished from 

 those of his Author by brackets — thus [ ]. 



The Synoptical Review of Species, in the present 

 publication, will in some measure supply to the Student 

 the want of the more ample Descriptive Part of the 

 Original. References are occasionally made, in differ- 

 ent parts of this volume, to the Descriptive Part of 



