NOTES ON SNAKES COLLECTED IN UPPER ASSAM. 



837 



merely avoided the thrust ami when advanced towards it slowly, 

 it retracted itself leisurely. x\notber lar<>o one was brouf^ht to mo at my 

 hospital by sevend urchins, who carried it balanced over a stick with 

 the result that every few yards it fell oft", but it made no attempt at 

 escape and allowed itself to be taken up and dropped again and again. 

 I watched this noisy band of urchins for some minutes advancing up the 

 road. I then took it by the, tail and ctirried it oOO yards or so home, 

 and worried it in every way to try to get it to strike, but it merely hid 

 its head beneath its coils and lay before me uncfoncernod. Other speci- 

 mens behaved similarly. 



Its movements are very slow, at any time, :md it trequently happens 

 that the i)Uinters, who own motor cars, drive over them on the roads 

 at night. The specimen which was disturbed whilst eating a fish is 

 reported to have made off, and climbed a tree to the height of some 10 

 feet or so. It was knocked off by a lathi and killed. 



The secretion of the anal glands is blackish, reminding one of 

 mercurial cream in appearance and consistency. The eye is black 

 as in other kraits, the pupil not being visible. 



This like many other snakes is very much infested with parasites. 

 I found two diff'erent nematode worms in the stomach, which 

 Dr. Annandale had identified for me as Ralicephalus loilleyi^ and larvse 

 and immature forms of u species of Ascarix. There were many tape 

 worms too in the abdominal cavity usually convoluting themselves 



iieneatli the lining membrane. 

 These are larval forms of a species 

 of Pterocercas. The maggot-like 

 parasite Porocephalm brotali was 

 also frequently found in the ab- 

 dominal cavity (see figure attached). 

 Dentition. — I cannot agree with 

 Boulenger's description of the fangs 

 (Catalogue Vol. Ill, page 3G5), 

 which he says are grooved in this 

 genus. He seems to suggest that 

 the fang is not tubuhir, but as far as 

 1 am aware the langs of all poisonous 

 Indian, I may say, Asian, snakes 

 ure tubular. < >i) rlif anterior tace of the fangs there is a shallow 



Porocephalus brotali, Cx8-) 



A. Profilo(a)doibal(6) veiitr.il honlcrs. 



B. Dors.il asi eel. 



C. Vt-ntral aspect showinj.' hookli.ts. 



