510 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXV. 



All contained embryos similar to the one described, except Nos. 6, 8 and 

 9 which were unfertile, 8 and 9 were discoloured and not fully formed, 

 while 6 was joined to 5. 



The snake incubated these eggs till 30th June and throughout the 

 period she was noticed twitching at short intervals. On the 2nd June 

 she left the eggs, had a drink and after immersing herself in the watertank 

 returned to the eggs. On the 16th June she ate a dead rat and a bird 

 placed near her. On the 30th June she left the eggs which were removed 

 and examined. All proved to be addled except one which contained 

 a living snake 1A\" long and about f of an inch in thickness. The foetal 

 tooth, which ended in a blunt point was distinctly visible to the 

 naked eye. 



The dam had sloughed on the 7th April before the incubation period and 

 did not shed her skin again till the 19th July. 



Central Museum, Nagpuk, E. A. D'ABREU, f.z.s. 



%th August 1917. 



No. XIX.— THE VARIETIES OF COBRAS IN CENTRAL 



INDIA. 



Please see Col. Bannerman's paper on the distribution of varieties of 

 Cobra in Vol. XVI, page 638, and Vol. XVII, page 1031, of our Journal. 



Central India is mentioned as the habitat of the variety caeca. 



On 3rd June a Cobra was brought to me of the ordinary '' typica " variety 

 with well developed ocellate marks. It was 3'-10" in length. 



On the 11th June I was brought a Cobra of the variety "caeca"' 4'-3 

 long. I made a careful lepidosis of the snake although I was certain tha 

 it could be nothing else. So far as I recollect Goona is the onlj^ place 

 given in Col. Bannerman's map, lying in Central India. Here (Manpur) 

 the two varieties occur. It will be interesting to see which prevails when 

 more have been collected. 



C, E. LUARD, Majok. 



The Agency, Manpuk, C. I., 

 2nd September 1917, 



No. XX.— COBRAS WITHOUT THE CUNEATE SCALE. 



I am sending to-day the head of a snake which was killed by a servant 

 in the compound last night. I proceeded to identify it this morning and 

 at once came to the conclusion that it was a Cobra {Naia trijmdiatis) on the 

 following points : — 



1. 3rd supra -labial touches nasal shield and eye. This separates 



Cobras and Coral snakes from all other snakes, vide Wall's 

 " Poisonous Terrestrial Snakes," page 23. 



2. ' The prteocular shield touches the internasal ', peculiar to the 



cobras with two rare exceptions (page 28 same book). 



3. Other marks as tail, etc., point to the Cobra and scale pattern on 



back makes distinct chevron shape. 

 I went over all this mcist carefully and could not find that I was mistaken 

 in anj'^ point fmt 1 could find no ' cuneate ' scale and the scales differ in 

 the two following points. The 2nd temporal does not touch 5th and 6th 

 supralabials but the 4th and 5th, and the 4th supra-labial does not toxich 

 the eye as figured in Wall's book, page 29. I have not identified 

 many snakes and most of those of this part of India are new to me, but 



