NOTES ON AUSTBALIAN TTPHLOPIDJE. — WAITE. 57 



contact along the ventral margin for half the length of the shell, 

 the left valve slightly overlapping the right. Colour a uniform 

 dull white. Epidermis pale straw colour, largely abraded, thin 

 and very wrinkled. Sculpture about thirty concentric growth 

 laminte in the interstices of which are two or three raised hair lines; 

 anteriorly these laminae are puckered up into lines of square-headed 

 thorns by transverse waves radiating from the beaks. Opposite 

 the beaks the thorny ridges diminish for a few series and cease, 

 posteriorly they are represented by faint wrinkles on the growth 

 laminae. Beaks situated at a quarter of the length of the shell 

 from the anterior extremity. Hinge margin narrow, sharply 

 recurved, not appressed to the valve and destitute of such 

 denticles as possessed by P. dactylus. Dorsal plate lanceolate, 

 single, entire, striated by divaricating growth lines, with a 

 shallow median furrow. Subumbonal process long, flat and 

 curved. Length 40, height 20, breadth 16 mm. 



Attached to some specimens are pale brown, tough, coriaceous 

 siphon sheaths. 



Type. — In the Australian Museum, Sydney. 



The specimens on which my description is based were collected 

 by Mr. Brazier in a small outcrop of shale at Vaucluse Bay, 

 That gentleman informs me that he also encountered the species 

 at "The Nobbys," near Newcastle, and at the mouth of the 

 Bellinger River, some examples attaining twice the dimensions of 

 those now recorded. 



NOTES ON AUSTRALIAN TYPHLOPIDjE. 

 By Edgar R. Waite, F.L.S. 



1. Typhlops curtus, Ogilhy. 



It is worthy of remark that no one in Australia has hitherto 

 investigated the TyjMojyidce of the continent : the reason probably 

 lies in the fact that only a very small portion of this immense 

 area can be said to be at all adequately known, and scientific 

 workers have ample material of more attractive and better 

 differentiated forms than characterise the Typhlopidce. Although 

 of all snakes this group is admitted to be the most difficult of 

 determination, some fifteen Australian species are known ; all 

 these have, however, been described in Europe : by Gray and 



