OPHIDIAN NOMENCLA TURE, ETC, 41 7 



public through the daily press, as the Bothraps rhambeata, 

 the HacJiesis rhainbeata^ and the LacJiesis rJiainbeata. It 

 is doubtful whether many of the 'general public' imagined 

 these three names to represent the same snake, or whether 

 — except possibly from the last generic one — they could 

 form any idea of the reptile therefrom. Of the many 

 papers that fell under one's notice, Land and Water alone 

 on this occasion spelt the words correctly. As yet there is 

 no journal devoted to the Reptilia, and the study is evi- 

 dently not attractive. Nor do we expect all naturalists to 

 be ophiologists ; but those of the editors who were zoologists 

 might have hazarded a guess and made sense of the generic 

 Lachesis^ seeing that a deadly, fateful serpent was intended. 

 Some of the scientific 'weeklies' having started the wrong 

 names, unscientific 'dailies' deferentially transcribed them. 

 The errors were chiefly traceable to caligraphy, and are 

 mentioned here to exemplify -the advantage of seeking a 

 meaning in scientific appellations, the meanings of some 

 names being so obvious that in spite of a wrong letter you 

 may frequently decide upon them. 



This fateful Lachcsis of South America has been as 

 perplexingly described by unscientific travellers as the 

 Jararaca, and as hard to identify. It has been a stumbling- 

 block and a snare ever since the time of Waterton, who 

 thus wrote of it : ^ — ' Unrivalled in the display of every 

 lovely colour of the rainbow, and unmatched in the effects 

 of his deadly poison, the counacoiicJii glides undaunted on, 

 sole monarch of these forests. He sometimes grows to the 

 length of fourteen feet. He is commonly known by the 



1 Wanderings in South America, by Charles Waterton. London, 1S25. 



2 D 



