EAST AFRICAN REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS 39 



end, and halted 5 feet away, while the snake lay in curves like the thong of a 

 whip, its head turned toward the mongoose. Both were motionless for a moment. 

 Then suddenly'the mongoose seemed to lose all its excitement; its hair smoothed 

 down ; and it trotted quietly up to the snake, seized it by tb.e middle of the back — 

 it always devoured its food with savage voracity — and settled comfortably down 

 to its meal. Like lightning the snake's head whipped round. It drove its 

 fangs deep into the snout or lip of the mongoose, hung on for a moment, and then 

 repeated the blow. The mongoose paid not the least attention, but went on 

 munching the snake's body, severed its backbone at once, and then ate it all up, 

 head, fangs, poison, and everything; and it never showed a sign of having re- 

 ceived any damage in the encounter. I had always understood that the mon- 

 goose owed its safety to its agility in avoiding the snake's stroke, and I can offer 

 no explanation of this particular incident. (Roosevelt, pp. 290-291.) 



There were a good many poisonous snakes. I killed a big puff adder with 

 13 eggs inside it; and we also killed a squat, short-tailed viper, beautifully 

 mottled, not 18 inches long, but with a wide flat head and a girth of body out 

 of all proportion to its length; and another very poisonous and vicious snake, 

 apparently of colubrine tj'pe, long and slender. (Roosevelt, p. 389.) 



BITIS NASICORNIS (Shaw) 



Coluber nasicornis Shaw, 1802, Nat. Miscell., vol. 3, pi. 94. 



Bitis 7iasicornis, Boulenger, 1896, Cat. Snakes Brit. Mus., vol. 3, p. 500. 



32 (U.S.N.M. 48967-94, 48997-49000) Kenya Colony. (Heller) 1912. 

 2 (U.S.N.M. 48995-6) Lukosa River, K. C. (Heller) 1912. 

 1 (U.S.N.M. 49001) Kaimosi, K. C. (Heller) 1912. 

 1 (U.S.N.M. 49049) Kakumega, K. C. (Heller) 1912. 



Nos. 48981-6 were not submitted for examination, the others had 

 mid-body scale rows, 33 to 37; ventrals, 122 to 127; anals, single; 

 subcaudals, 12 to 29; labials, 15 to 20. The largest snake, a skin 

 with head and tail attached, measured 968 (894 + 74) mm. 



Genus ECHIS Merrem 



ECHIS CARINATUS (Schneider) 



Pseudoboa carinata Schneider, 1801, Hist. Amph., vol. 2, p. 285. 

 Echis carinaius Boulenger, 1896, Cat. Snakes Brit. Mus., vol. 3, p. 505; 1896, 

 Proc. Zool. Soc. London, p. 217. (Lake Stephanie, K. C.) 



1 (U.S.N.M. 49056) Guaso Nyiro, K. C. (Heller) 1912. 



1 (U.S.N.M. 66897) North of Guaso Nyiro, K. C. (Rafferty) 1912. 



1 (U.S.N.M.) 66898) Dussia, east of southern end of Lake Rudolph, 



K. C. (Mearns) 1912. 

 1 (U.S.N.M. 66905) Lake Rudolph, K. C. (Mearns) 1912. 



On June 11, 1895,|Dr. A. Donaldson Smith collected a desert 

 saw viper near Lake Stephanie as recorded by Boulenger in 1896. 

 Lake Stephanie lies just west of Lake Rudolph. The record, how- 

 ever, lapsed into oblivion and was omitted by Boulenger from his 

 "List of the Snakes of East Africa * * *," pubUshed in 1915. 



The rediscovery of this Indian and North African species in Kenya 

 Colony is therefore of considerable interest. The five localities are 

 all in the same general region. Geographically there is nothing very 

 surprising in the finding of^this desert snake in so arid a region for 



