REMARKS ON RECENTLY ACQUIRED CEYLON SNAKES. 35 
REMARKS ON SOME RECENTLY ACQUIRED 
CEYLON SNAKES. 
By Major F. Watt, I.M.S. 
O Dr. Willey I am indebted for a specimen of the Ceylon water- 
snake T'ropidonotus asperrimus, and to Mr. E. EK. Green for 
six other snakes, all of which are worthy of special remarks. 
Tropidonotus asperrimus, Boulenger. 
The specimen sent convinces me that this snake is not entitled. to 
rank as a species, but is better considered as merely an insular colour 
variety of 7’. piscator, Schneider, comparable to the Andaman variety 
tytlert of the same species. Its markings accord well with the figure 
in Mr. Boulenger’s Catalogue (Vol. I., Plate XV., fig. 2), but the last 
two costal rows are quite smooth, so that it is evident that some 
specimens perfectly agree with typical forms of piscator in the only 
character, excepting colour, upon which it is separated from that 
species. Mr. Boulenger claims that only the last row is without 
keels. 
I prepared the skull, and this and the dentition perfectly accord 
with those of typical forms of piscator from India. The teeth are as 
follows: maxillary, 21 left, 22 right; palatine, 11 left, 12 right ; 
pterygoid, 22 left, 24 right; mandibular, 22 left, ? right (broken). 
The dentition of four other skulls of Indian piscator in my collections 
is: maxillary, 21 to 25; palatine, 11 to 15; pterygoid, 24 to 27; 
mandibular, 23 to 27. 
Dendrelophis tristis, Daudin. 
Two specimens were received, one head and neck only, the other 
a gravid 2, measuring 3 ft. 114 in., killed at Peradeniya at the end of 
December, 1909, and containing 7 nearly mature eggs. 
The Ceylon form of this snake appears to be an insular variety, 
at least I cannot remember ever having seen it in any part of India. 
It differs from the Indian form in (1) the absence of a light round 
spot on the back of the head in the interparietal suture ; (2) the 
light vertebral stripe is very conspicuous, being bright yellow, and 
limited to a small extent of the forepart of the spine ; (3) there is 
no black line between the dark brown dorsal colouration and the 
buff flank stripe ; (4) all the scales, including the vertebral, are 
heavily bordered with black basally and apically. The variety 
is very nicely shown in Plate XII. of the Bombay Natural History 
Journal, Vol. X1X., Part 4, whieh accompanies my article on this 
