176 SPOLIA ZEYLANIGCA. 
but the pairs blend and become lost anteriorly. The second supra- 
labial is about as broad as the third. The sutures made by the 
preocular with the second and third supralabials are about 
equal. 
The specimen in question accords with the latter characters, 
and the ventrals and subcaudals are 195 4 43. 
F. WALL, C.M.ZS., 
Major, I.M.S. 
Colombo, February 10, 1907. 
3. Remarkable Snake Fatality — Whilst in Nuwara Eliya, on 
the 4th of February, I discovered a dead snake hanging head 
downwards from a hole in a bank on the road near the boathouse. 
A closer examination proved that its body was tightly impacted 
in the hole, for I was unable to pull it out, though using con- 
siderable force. I eventually had to dig the body out, and then 
identified the snake as Aspidura trachyprocta, and discovered 
that it was a heavily egg-bound female. 
Its death was directly due to the increased girth arising from its 
maternal expectations. The snake was 16 inches in length, and 
when laid on its side showed a marked constriction at the seat 
of impaction, some 11 inches from the snout. The constriction 
measured a quarter of an inch, against a diameter of half an inch 
immediately before and behind. 
On cutting the snake open I found six eggs measuring seven-eighths 
of an inch each. Two of these had been forcibly dragged through 
the hole without rupture, but the remaining four were lying behind 
the constriction, and were much congested in common with the 
neighbouring tissues and organs. 
Remarkable as this incident appears it is not the first of its kind 
I have met with. In Fyzabad in India I once found a checquered 
Keelback (Tropidonotus piscator) which had similarly under- 
estimated its bodily proportions and had insinuated itself between 
the crevices of some boards that walled up the supports of a 
bridge, in such a way that it was unable to release itself, and died 
from the compression resulting from its own endeavours to 
advance. 
These two accidents seem to me to argue a very poor intelligence, 
sjnce a retrograde movement in either case would have extricated 
the victim from its predicament. 
F. WALL, C.M.ZS., 
Colombo, February 10, 1907. Major, I.M.S. 
