374 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVT. 



No. XV —THE BREEDING OF RUSSELL'S VIPER 

 (VIPER A RUSSELLII). 



Among a number of snakes which have recently died in the Plague 

 Research Laboratory at Parel, and which Lieutenant-Colonel Bannerman, 

 I.M.S., has been kind enough to send me, was a gravid Russell's viper whose 

 pregnancy was remarkable for the paucity of the brood and the season of 

 its occurrence. It contained a solitary foetus. Now of all the snakes I know, 

 excepting Tropidonotus piscator, this viper is the most prolific, as may be readily 

 understood from the breeding notes I have collected from various sources, and 

 herewith append in tabular form : — 



