558 TEXTBOOK OF ZOOLOGY 



and color is great. The arboreal species are slender and green. 

 The terrestrial species are heavier in body and varied in color. The 

 subterranean, the semiaquatic, and the aquatic forms all show 

 adaptations to their environments. Most of our Coluberine snakes 

 are nonvenomous, but some are mildly poisonous opisthoglyphs. A 

 majority of the snakes in this family lay eggs but some bring forth 

 the young alive. 



Family Elapidae (corals, harlequins). — Twenty-nine genera with 

 about 140 species make up this family. All except two genera are 

 found in the Old World only. Africa, Asia, Malay Archipelago, 

 and Australia have representatives of this family. In Australia 

 there are only a few representatives of other families. In the United 

 States there are two genera containing one species each. Together 

 they cover most of the southern half of our country. 



All the snakes in this family are deadly poisonous proteroglyph 

 serpents. The cobras of Asia and Africa kill thousands of persons 

 every year. This is due partly to superstitions and religious be- 

 liefs that protect these snakes in those regions. The venom of this 

 family of snakes is largely neurotoxic in action; i.e., it acts on the 

 nervous centers. Hence, it usually acts much more quickly than 

 the slower hemolytic and hemotoxic venoms of the pit vipers. Some 

 cobras may attain a length of ten to twelve feet. Men have been 

 known to die in less than an hour after being bitten by such a snake. 

 However, the venom of the coral snakes, the American representa- 

 tives of this family, is more deadly per unit volume. The coral 

 snakes are seldom more than two feet long and are not capable of 

 injecting such large quantities of venom. 



The coral snakes are beautiful little snakes marked with bril- 

 liant cross bands of red, yellow, and black. There are three harm- 

 less snakes found in the same parts of our country that have the 

 same colors in their patterns. None of them, however, duplicates 

 the sequence of the bands on the coral snakes. In these poisonous 

 snakes the order of the colored bands is red, yellow, and black. 

 In the harmless species the order is red, black, and yellow. The 

 following jingle is a good device for remembering these color 

 schemes: 



Red and yellow 



Kill a fellow. 



Red and black 



Venom lack. 



