4M ^ SNAKES. 



such prefixes as the black snake, the hroiun snake, causes 

 infinite perplexity, and not unfrequently furnishes argumen- 

 tative articles to the journals. 'Carpet' snake is another 

 vernacular applied to a harmless species in Australia, and to 

 the extremely venomous little EcJiis of India. Then every 

 country has its 'Deaf adder' which is neither an 'adder' nor 

 ' deaf.' And the ' moccasin ' of the United States is a still 

 existing stumbling-block. 



Another great confusion in classification has been in con- 

 sequence of some of the earlier naturalists representing young 

 snakes, or those of varying colours, as distinct species. It is 

 very common for a young snake to differ in colour from the 

 parent, and also common for those of the same brood to 

 differ from each other. Of Coluber canis Dr. A. Smith says 

 scarcely any two are marked and coloured alike. In a brood 

 of the broad-scaled Tasmanian snake, H. superbiis, there were 

 upwards of thirty young ones, some of which Krefift describes 

 as banded, and of a light colour, the rest being black. Our 

 English slow-worm varies from dead black to nearly white, or 

 flesh colour, one of the latter being an inmate of the Gardens 

 at the time of writing, March 1882. The English viper also 

 varies in colour, and we have heard of a perfectly yellow 

 ring snake. 



In England ive have so few snakes, viz. the ring snake, 

 the coronella, and one viper, and these three so distinct, 

 that we are not likely to be perplexed with many varieties ; 

 but in tropical or semi-tropical regions, where closely-allied 

 species abound, it may be suspected that hybrids not 

 unfrequently create confusion as well as a multiplication of 

 supposed 'species' not likely to cease. In our small 



