Zoology.'] 



NATURAL HISTOEY OF VICTORIA. 



[Reptiles, 



Plate 13. 

 MORELIA VARIEGATA (Gray). 



The Carpet Snake. 



[Genus MORELIA (Gray). (Sub-kingd. "Vertebrata. Class Rcptilia. Order Ophidia. 

 Earn. PythonidEB.) 



Gen. Char. — Head moderate, ovate, flat above, broadly rounded behind ; muzzle truncated. 

 Neck narrow. Body long, moderately thick. Tail very short, prehensile, spirally inroUed, and 

 with a pair of rudimentary legs, like short conical spurs, one on each side of its base below. 

 Plates on top of head very small, numerous, irregular, scal»-like ; three frontal plates on each 

 side ; vertex plate very small, polygoual ; rostral pentagonal, with a groove-like pit on each 

 side of the upper margins ; nostril in one plate, shghtly grooved below ; three front upper 

 labials, and seven or eight hinder lower labial plates, with a deep pit in each. Eyes surrounded 

 hy ten small plates forming three-fourths of a circle, touching the sixth and seventh labials 

 below. Pupil elliptical, erect. Scales of back small, smooth; abdominal plates narrow; sub- 

 caudals in two tows. Confined to Australia.] 



Description. — Color: gTound color, Dearly uniform pale-brown having' a tinge 

 of greenish grey, with an irregular darker carpet-like pattern, usually of a long narrow 

 dark streak surmounted by one of the light ground color of the same width, forming 

 a double band along each side from head to near base of tail. The back is marked out 

 into three or four rows of iriegular lozenge-shaped patches of the pale ground color, 

 usually with a blackish-brown blotch in the middle and margined by a broad blackish- 

 brown outline. The upper part of the head is of the pale ground color, with one 

 longitudinal dark streak from tbe nostril through the eye to the lateral angle of the 

 head, where it usually joins a broad V-shaped round mark diverging from the vertex 

 or first median plate on each side to near the lateral posterior angle of the head. 

 From this V-shaped mark a short branch extends to near the middle of the eye. 

 Between the posterior diverging ends of the V-shaped mark is a very constant broad 

 rhombic dark- brown mark, extended posteriorly along the middle of the nape of the 

 neck, and having a light patch in the middle of its broadest part. Belly pale-yel- 

 lowish. The abdominal and subcaudal plates irregularly marked with blackish-brown 

 blotches. Under part of head and neck pale without spots. Teeth : all the teeth 

 are solid, of moderate size, and curved backwards ; 2 on intermaxillaries in front of 

 mouth, 11 on each side of upper jaw, and 12 on each palate bone, of which the 3 

 anterior are largest, the 1st one-sixth of an inch long, the hinder ones only one- 

 sixteenth of an inch long; 15 to 17 in lower jaw, the 1st smallest, the 2nd one-tenth 

 of an inch long, the others decreasing backwards. 



Reference. — Gray, Zoo). Misc. 43, 54. 



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