.4 POPULA R TRhlA TJSE ON THE COMMON INDIA N SNAKES. 77« 



pletely concetileel by the overlappiiio of the scale below it. In our Plate 

 (6gnres 3 and 4) this ornamentntion is not done justice to, the blue 

 being neither brioht enough nov broad enough. The head is coloured 

 above like the back, but the upper lip is yellow, creamy-buff, or 

 opalescent abruptly demarcated above. There is a roundish yellow 

 spot in the suture between the parietal shields (not shown by our 

 artist), thin black edges to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th supralabials (some- 

 times the 1st also), and a somewhat obscure, narrow, black postocular 

 streak not or hardly extending to the neck. The belly is uniform 

 creamy-yellow, pale-greyish, greenish, or bluish green. 



The markings to which special attention is to be paid are (1) The 

 interparietal spot ; (2) The light vertebral stripe ; (3) The black 

 posterior margins to the anterior supralabials ; (4) The narrow, short, 

 and often obscure black postocular streak and (5) a more or less obvious 

 black line separating the dorsal brown from the yellow flank stripe. 

 I find these present (except (1) and (2) in a single example from 

 Marmagoa) in all the specimens I have examined from the 

 localities mentioned hereafter under distribution, and none of those 

 are present in sjiecimens of Dendrophk pictm. In the Eastern 

 Himalayas where these two species are associated (on slopes below 

 Darjeeling) I saw many specimens last year, and learnt to discriminate 

 between them at a glance, by the marks above referred to. 



Dimeti!iio7i.s. — The longest measurement I know is 3 feet 9 inches. 

 I obtained a specimen of this length in Trichinopoly. 



General character.^. — The Indian bronze-back is remarkably elegant 

 in colouration, and form. Its head is rather elongate, snout bluntly 

 rounded, nostril small, and the eye large and lustrous with a golden 

 iris and round pupil. The neck is very distinctly constricted, the body 

 long, slender, smooth, and rather depressed {i.e., flattened from above 

 downwards). The belly is conspicuously ridged on either side as in 

 Chrysopelea ornata. An unusually long tiipering tail accounts for 

 nearly one-third the total length of the snake. This appendage is 

 ridged beneath in the same manner as the belly. 



Identijication. — The dual combination of enlarged vertebrals, and 

 ridged ventrals {see Diagram I, figs. F and G) proclaims any snake 

 either a Dendrophis or Dendrelaphis^ so that it remains to distinguish 

 this species from others in these two genera. Only (I of these have lo 



