NOTES ON SNAKES COLLECTED IN CANNANORE. 



303- 



informed him that he could almost always distinguish the male from 

 the female by his more strongly pronounced tints. In this connection 

 the following excerpt from my notebook of June 10th is especially 

 interesting : — A jail warder on the evening of the 9th June encountered 

 and caught 5 specimens of this species in close proximity. The next 

 morning I examined the spot, and ascertained that though no two were 

 actually found together, they were all flushed within 20 to 30 yards of 

 ono another, on a piece of ground bare except for a few strips of grass 

 on the bunds of a dried up paddy field. One proved to be a female 

 heavily pregnant with 6 nearly matured eggs, the rest were adult males, 

 I supposed attracted to her in ignorance of her maternal expectations. 

 The female was very brilliantly blotched vermilion on the foreback, and 

 spotted on the belly with the same colour, her throat was bright orange. 

 One male was identical in colouring, another differed by lacking the 

 spots of vermilion on the belly, whilst the other two were unadorned with 

 vermilion. It seems clear, therefore, that in this species the brilliant 

 adornment is not of sexual import, since it is not the prerogative of 

 either sex. A glance too at the accompanying table shows that it is not 

 of seasonal significance. There seems to be little difference in the length 

 of the sexes, or in the relative lengths of the bodies, and tails, but the 

 females have rather fewer subcaudals (62-68) than the males (67-80). 



