70 



RECORDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. 



This species will come into Division III. of Boulenger's synopsis,* 

 "a prseocular and one or two suboculars," but will fit into neither 

 of the subordinate groups, the character of the snout not being 

 sufficiently marked. Taking the number of scales round the 

 body, namely, thirty four to thirty -six, the only described species 

 with which it thus agrees is T. acutiis,^ at once distinguishable 

 (apart from its distribution) by the peculiar snout and the remark- 

 able size of the rostral. 



A species, T. depressus/i has previously been made known from 

 the Duke of York Island ; in this the pneocular is in contact 

 with the labials, and a comparison of Peters' figures (a reference 

 to which Mr. Boulenger has, in his Catalogue,;^ omitted) with those 

 below given, shows how widely the two species difter. 



I 



From above. 



From below. 



In profile. 

 Head of Typhlops suhocularis (enlarged). 



* Boulenger— Brit. Mus. Cat. Snakes, i., 1893, p. 14. 

 t Dum. et Bibr., Erpet. gen., vi., 1844, p. 333. 



t Peters— Monatsb. K. Preus. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1880, p. 220, fig. 3 

 (p. 309). 



§ Boulenger — loc. cit., p. 33. 



