Zoology.-] NATURAL HISTORY OF VICTORIA. [Reptiles. 



Reference. — Pseudoelaps snperciliosus (Fischer), Abhandlungen aus dem 

 Gebiete dei' Natui-wissenscbalten, h. v. d., naturwissenschaftlichen Verein in Ham- 

 burg ; vol. 3, t. 2, f. 3. 



This is one of the largest of the poisonous and very dangerous 

 snakes of the colony, and is more generally distributed than any 

 of the others, being equally common from the south coast to our 

 northern Murray boundary. In the experiments made by Dr. 

 Halford on snake-poisoning, taljulated in the Medical Society^s 

 Journal for March 1875, all the cases of people bitten by the 

 Brown Snake and treated by the injection of ammonia recovered ; 

 but in one of the last cases mentioned in the public journals 

 {Bendigo Advertiser, 27th October 1877), a snake of this species, 

 3 feet 6 inches long (the fifth in above table of measurements), 

 bit Mrs. Eleanor Ingleby, residing at Sebastian, in the hand, and 

 she died from the effects within fifty minutes. The acting coroner, 

 Mr. Strickland, who held the inquest, sent the specimen to the 

 Museum, where it is now dejDosited, so that the species is deter- 

 mined with certainty. 



Explanation op Figures. 



Plate 23. — Fig. 1, average specimen, one-fifth the natural size. Fig. la, side view of head, 

 natural size (the groove in front of the eye not sufficiently shaded to indicate the projection of 

 the eyebrow and apparent division of the first ocular). Fig. 16, same, with mouth closed, 

 groove in front of the eye not sufficiently shaded. Fig. \c, view of the top of the head, natural 

 size, to show the form and disposition of the plates. Fig. \d, same viewed from below. Fig. le, 

 nasal plates with nostril. Fig. \f, inside of palate of same specimen, natural size, showing the 

 two small fangs with the row of smaller solid teeth behind on each side, and the two palatine 

 rows of small, solid teeth. 



Plate 23, Figs. 2 and 3. 

 DIEMENIA MICROLEPIDOTA (McCot). 



Small-scaled Brown Snake. 



Description. — General appearance of D. supercil'wsa and with a similarly 

 small ro.stral plate ; but the vertex plate is nearly pentaj>;onal, from the broad front 

 beinfc almost destitute of ang-le, forming the greatest width of the plate, which is 

 three-fourths of its total leng-th, the sides converffin"- backwards to the narrow 



. ^ on 



posterior end ; posterior frontals proportionally much more elongate, more than 

 twice the length of the anterior frontals, and the occipital plates much narrower 

 behind. The scales are also much smaller and more numerous, being 30 or 36 



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