HYDROPHIS CYANOCINCTA., 
‘Head of moderate size and width; neck and body rather elongate ; 
generally two labial shields below the eye ; two post-oculars (exceptionally 
confluent into one); two or more temporal-shields on the side of each 
occipital ; two pairs of chin-shields, the anterior of which are in contact 
with each other; twenty-nine to thirty-three series of scales round the 
neck. Scales slightly imbricate, rhombic, faintly keeled; three on the 
highest part of the body, rather longer than high. Ventrals, 320-360— 
406-426, twice or thrice as large as the scales of the adjoining series ; 
almost all are entire, not longitudinally divided, and bitubercular ; four 
anal-shields, the outer of which are larger than the inner; terminal 
scale of the tail rather small or of moderate size. Greenish-olive on the 
back, yellowish on the sides and belly ; trunk with from fifty to seventy- 
five black cross-bands, which are broadest on the back and broader than 
the interspaces of the ground colour; they are narrower on the sides, 
sometimes disappearing altogether with age on the sides and belly, or 
visible only as irregular spots on the ventral shields. In young and 
half-grown specimens they surround the body entirely, and are some- 
times joined by a black band running along the whole line of the ventral 
shields. The head is greenish-olive above and yellowish on the sides ; 
in the young, black variegated with yellow, the yellow colour sometimes 
forming a frontal and temporal band. ‘This is one of the commonest 
sea-snakes, occurring on the coasts of Ceylon, Madras, in the Bay of 
Bengal, in the East Indian Archipelago, and in the seas of China and 
Japan. It attains to a length of more than six feet. Old males have a 
remarkably thick and rounded tail.” 
