86 Contribution towards the knowledge of snakes in Brazil 
active during the day (perhaps exclusively confining themselves 
at present to day life) because of the necessities of providing 
themselves with nutrition. I frequently saw specimens in great 
activity during the day, principally between 9 and 11 in the 
morning and 3 and 5 in the afternoon, an abnormality which 
I was able to explain shortly afterward when I discovered the 
nutrition of the species. The snake is exclusively tree-living, 
generally found on trees and shrubs which bear small fruit. Here 
it remains, often for several days, awaiting its usual prey. 
Besides this, it is exclusively avivorous: when some bird comes 
carelessly hopping on the tree looking for ripe fruit to cat and 
hopps on a branch near the snake, or even on the snake itself, 
it is immediately surprised by the attack of the enemy which, 
never missing its mark, nearly always pierces the bird in the 
breast or neck. If peradventure the dead bird falls to the ground 
when the snake dit not get a good hold, the Lachesis calmly 
descends by the trunk of the tree or by the nearest liane and 
looks for her prey on the ground. | 
1 only had occasion, however, to observe this curious fact 
three times: nearly always snake inoculates the poison in the 
bird and is able to retain it, beginning Dai de to swallow 
it head first. 
More or less 10 minutes (31) after swallowing the bird the 
snake comes down the tree and lies on lianes or brush-woods 
or even on the ground itself beside the trunk or in the concavity 
of some rock during the time the food is being digested. 
The-trees to which the Lachesis give preference are exactly 
those which most attract the birds by their fruit. Among these 
trees I can cite the following: Trema micrantha (Sw.) ENGLER 
(«Crindeuva»), Cordia curassavica FRESEN («Herva baleeira»), 
Rudgea aff. coriacea K. ScH. («Café de pobre») and two Myrtacee, 
Eugenia sp. («Aperta gula»), and others commonly known by 
the name of « Myrtle». 
In exceptional cases I found specimens of the Lachesis on 
trees with no fruit: fig. 2 of plate X is exactly reproducing a 
photograph of a specimen in a tree in this condition. The snake 
is 6 meters from the ground on a branch of the Rapanea guia- 
nensis AUBL. (« Capororocá »). 
Finally, these specimens are also found coiled on the flower- 
bearing branches of the Graminea which, as everybody knows, 
altract flocks of birds in the fruit hearing season. 
The species of birds on the Island which are more frequently 
the victims of the Lachesis are: Elaenia mesoleuca (CaB, et HEINE) 
commonly known by the name of «João-tolo »; Sporophila caeru- 
lescens (BONN. et VIEILL.) commonly known by the name of « Papa 
(*) Sometimes much more or much less, according to the volume of the bird and to the shape 
of the snake. 
