4 VENOMS 
poisonous, but only slightly so. They are not dangerous to man. 
Their venom merely serves to paralyse their prey before deglutition 
takes place; it does not afford them an effective means of defence 
or attack. 
All the Homalopsine are aquatic; they bring forth their young 
in the water, and are met with commonly in the Indian Ocean, 
starting from Bombay, and especially in the Bay of Bengal, on 
the shores of Indo-China and Southern China, from Singapore to 
Formosa, in the Dutch Indies, in Borneo, the Philippines, New 
Guinea and the Papuan Archipelago, and as far as the north of 
Australia. 
The Dipsadomorphine comprise a large number of highly 
cosmopolitan genera and species, found in all the regions of the 
earth except the northerly portions of the Northern Hemisphere. 
None of these reptiles is capable of causing serious casualties among 
human beings, owing to the peculiarly defective arrangement of 
their poison-apparatus. I therefore do not think it worth while 
to linger here over their description. 
The Ælachistodontinæ are of even less importance; at the 
present time only two species are known, both of small size and 
confined to Bengal. 
The PRoTEROGLYPHA group of the Colubride is of much greater 
interest to us, since all the snakes belonging to it are armed with 
powerful fangs, in front of the upper maxillaries. These fangs, 
which are provided with a channel in the shape of a deep groove, 
communicate at the base with the efferent duct of poison glands, 
which are often of very large size. 
The group is composed of two Sub-families :— 
A. The Hydrophiinæ (sea-snakes), provided with a flattened 
oar-shaped tail. The body is more or less laterally compressed ; 
the eyes are usually small, with circular pupils; the scales of the 
nose have two notches on the upper labial border. 
The normal habitat of all the members of this sub-family is the 
