SNAKES 135 



with alternating series of dark brown spots, connected by- 

 dark meshes, and the scales are in twenty-five or twenty- 

 seven rows ; in the latter, in which the scales are disposed 

 in twenty-three rows, the ground colour is darker and the 

 spots are not connected up, the interspaces appearing as 

 narrow light bands, margined with black. 



A four-foot-long specimen of the first mentioned variety 

 recently brought forth a brood of twenty-two young in 

 our gardens. The newly born snakes, measuring eleven 

 inches long at birth, were exceedingly fierce, and struck 

 out right and left ; they fed with avidity, accounting, 

 in their first six months, when the majority had almost 

 doubled in length, for over five hundred small frogs. 



Lioheterodon, a genus represented by two species in 

 Madagascar, differs from Tropidonotus in the shape of 

 the head, which is scarcely distinct from the neck ; the 

 snout is pointed and projecting, much as in the North 

 American Heterodon ; the scales are smooth. The last 

 two teeth of the upper jaw are very large and fang-like, 

 and separated from the rest by an interspace. 



The commoner species is L. madagascariensis, a robust 

 snake, averaging six feet in length. The upper parts are 

 elegantly ornamented with irregular brown and yellow 

 spots, while the sides are yellow with alternating series of 

 brown blotches. The snake, which is very hardy and of 

 gentle disposition, is a voracious feeder, being equally 

 fond of mammals, frogs, and eggs ; the latter are surrounded 

 by its coils before being devoured, and the shell is broken 

 in the stomach and passed with the excrements. 



The genus Lycodon, in which the body is long and 

 slender, the head indistinct from the neck, and the small 



