36 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 



NOTES ON THE HABITS OF THE 



GREEN WHIP'SNAKE {Dryopliis mycterizans, Daud.) 



IN CAPTIVITY. 



By E. Ernest Green, F.E.S., 



Government Entomologist, Ceylon. 



"O OULENGER (Faun. Brit. Ind. " Reptilia and Batrachia," p. 369) 

 -*— ^ records Dryojjhis fronticinctus and D. prasinus as being 

 ovoviviparous, but no mention is made of the breeding habit of 

 the other Indian species. I find that D. mycterizans is also 

 ovoviviparous. One of these snakes gave birth to five living young 

 in my vivarium on the 16th and 17th of April. The fifth was 

 hampered by the egg-membrane and died two days later. The 

 newly-born snakes measured 350 mm. from snout to tip of tail, 

 and were of a pale olive green colour above, whitish below. They 

 at first kept together, in an apparently tangled mass, amongst the 

 branches of the plant. On the eighth day they all shed a skin and 

 appeared in brighter tints, and were more independent in their 

 movements. I am not sure whether they have taken any food or 

 not. I have supplied them with young grasshoppers and other 

 small insects, but have never observed them to take any interest 

 in these insects. Boulenger mentions insects as the food of 

 D. prasinus in early age. 



The parent is quite tame, and allows itself to be handled freely 

 without objection. It feeds readily upon young lizards of the 

 genus Calotes and upon Geclwnidce. Its manner of capturing its 

 prey is invariable. When a lizard is introduced into the cage the 

 snake slowly frees the forepart of its body and coils itself in a 

 zigzag fashion. Then, suddenly darting forward, it seizes the 

 victim unerringly just behind the head, drags it from its support, 

 and keeps it dangling without shifting its hold, but gradually 

 tightening its grip, until the lizard is sufi:ocated. This process 

 may take perhaps 20 minutes in the case of a Calotes. The 

 snake never commences to swallow its prey until all signs of life 

 have ceased. 



This Dryophis has moulted some four or five times during the 

 six months that it has been in captivity. Sometimes the ecdysis 

 has been more or less fragmentary. The skin of the head and neck 



