548 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVI. 



forebody is thrown into shallow lateral undulations. The curves of 

 the undulations are rhythmically reversed, and by this manoeuvre car- 

 ried out with much muscular effort the mass is propelled onwards to 

 the stomach in a surprisingly brief interval of time. 



Breeding. — This is one of the very few snakes whose breeding habits 

 have been observed. The young are born alive, having previously burst 

 their egg envelope within the mother's abdomen (ovoviviparous). 



Ferguson * records one giving birth to twelve young on September 

 27th, 1891, in the public gardens at Trevandrum in Travancore. It had 

 been in captivity since June 30th of the same year, so that the period of 

 gestation was, at the very least, 59 days. I suspect it will prove to be 

 much longer, for a specimen of an allied species {D. prasinus) which had 

 been received in the London Zoological Gardens from Java on the 

 15th of August 1885, gave birth to 8 young on January 9th, 1888, hav- 

 ing had no male companionship during this whole period, f 



Green % mentions another instance from Ceylon when one in captivity 

 gave birth to five young on the 16th and 17th April 1903. The fifth, 

 hampered by its egg envelope, succumbed two days later. All the 

 brood sloughed on the eighth day after birth. A specimen received by 



Captain Evans and myself from 

 Tadoungoo, Lower Burma, on the 

 23rd of May 1900 (with other 

 snakes recently collected) contained 

 three young with no vestige of egg 

 envelope to be discovered within 

 the mother. Evans has recorded 



„ . another specimen in this Journal 



Dentition of Dryophis myctenzans l 



(after Boulenger) Vol. XVI., p. .169, killed (Ran- 



goon ?) on the 4th May containing 5 young, and Blanford (J. A. S. B., 

 Vol. XXXIX., p. 373) mentions a specimen from Korba (Bilaspur 

 C. P.) containing 4 large eggs. 



Poison. — This species for practical purposes is usually considered to 

 be innocuous. It is furnished with grooved fangs situated at the hinder 

 extremity of the maxillary. Its bite is reputed to be quite harmless 

 to man, as the following quotation will exemplify. The Revd. F. 



Horn. Nat. Hist. Jour., Vol. X, p. 6. 

 t P. Z. S., 1886, p. 124. 

 X Spolia Zeylanica, Vol. I, Pt. II, June 1903, p. 1. 



