INTR OD UCTION. 5 



In Germany, also, ophiology was far in advance of us. 

 Lenz, Helmann, Effeldt, and many others pursued the study 

 practically ; and produced some valuable results in their 

 printed works, which unfortunately are too little known in 

 England. Doubtless because we in England have so few 

 native reptiles, there is less inducement to concern ourselves 

 about them. Not so in America, where herpetology soon 

 found many enthusiasts ; and the researches of Holbrooke, 

 Emmons, De Kay, and Weir Mitchel were published within 

 a few years of each other. Dr. Cantor in India, and Dr. 

 Andrew Smith in South Africa, Drs. Gray and Gunther 

 and P. H. Gosse in England, all enriched ophlological 

 literature previous to 1850, to say nothing of the 

 valuable additions to the science dispersed among the 

 Reports and Transactions of the various scientific Societies. 

 After the appearance of Dr. Giinther's important work, 

 The Reptiles of British India, in 1864, published under 

 the auspices of the Ray Society, another fresh impetus 

 was observable, and we had Krefft's Snakes of Australia, 

 1869; Indian Snakes, by Dr. E. Nicholson, 1870; culmi- 

 nating in The Thanatophidia of India, by Sir Joseph, then 

 Dr. Fayrer, F.R.S., C.S.I., etc., Surgeon-Major of the Bengal 

 Army, in 1872, which brings me to the commencement of 

 my own studies. 



A few years ago, I knew nothing whatever about snakes ; 

 and to them, though deriving my chief pleasures from an 

 inherited love of all things in nature, a faint interest at a 

 respectfnl distance, was all I accorded. In Virginia and 

 Florida, where a country life and a gorgeous flora enticed 

 my steps into wild and secluded districts, we not unfrequcntly 



