96 JOURNAL, BOMB A Y NA TUliAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIX. 



body which was entirely on the side of the blind next to me, ronnd 

 the bamboos." As already stated it will frequently climb up into the 

 roofs of houses, but perhaps the most remarkable example of its 

 scansorial achievements is that mentioned by Haly*, a specimen 

 having been caught in the lantern of the Minicoy lighthouse in 

 Ceylon. 



Food. — L. auliciis whilst showing a preference for lizards of the 

 gecko family accepts with avidity other small creatures that cross its 

 path. 1 have on 13 occasions known it take geckoes always of the 

 genus Heynidactylus, usually frenatvs but also coctaei. On 8 occa- 

 sions a mouse had furnished the meal, and on 6 other occasions skinks 

 had b.'.en devoured. In the United Provinces Mihuia dissimilis ?, in 

 Burma Lygosoma cyanellum, and once another Lygosoma too 

 digested to determine. Mr. E. E. Green tells me in Ceylon he has 

 known it take a Lygosoma in captivity. Willey says its staple food 

 in Ceylon consists of the brahminy lizard, Mabuia cirinata. 



Foes. — I have known it fall a victim to the common kra it, and 

 the habits of the two snakes are so alike that I suspect the wolf-snake 

 very frequently meets an untimely death at the jaws of its ophiopha- 

 gous relative. 



Breeding. The Sexes. — As already remarked the 9 appears to 

 grow to a greater length than the $. The sexes, as regards numbers 

 appear to bo equally balanced, thus my note books show that of 7?) 

 specimens sexed, .86 were males, 37 females. 



I have known the sexes in company in November in Cannanore 

 by report. In this case the native who brought the ^ assured me 

 it was united with another which escaped. In January in Fyzabad 

 two were found in company in a bottlekhana, and in Dibrugarh two 

 pairs were killed in company one in June and one in July. The 

 June 9 was heavily egg-bound at the time, but only the anterior 

 half of the July specimen which I a?sume to have been a 9 was 

 brought in, the ^ being perfect. It is evident that they do not 

 dissolve partnership after sexual congress for a long time, if they do 

 so at all, but this is a point upon which I am very uncertain and a 

 very difficult one to elucidate. The smallest gravid females I have 

 known were both 1 foot 6^ inches long, a length probably attained 

 at the beginning of the third year of life. 



* First Report Snakes, Colombo Mus. 11886, p. 15. 



