10 JOURNAL, NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY OF SIAM. Vol. I. 
to say. No bones are broken as it is commonly believed, and the 
animal dies of asphyxia. 
Pythons grow to a great size, like the rest of the Boa family. 
Specimens are said to have been killed 30 feet in length, but such 
dimensions are naturally never reached in Bangkok. Flower mentions 
one killed in 1897 that was 20 feet long. The largest I know of my- 
self measured 164 feet. Specimens of 10 to 12 feet are fairly common 
and are often hawked in the streets where they realize a few ticals for 
the sake of their gall-bladder and skin. The former is accounted a 
a valuable remedy for colic as well as for various other complaints. 
A python that has newly cast its skin is one of the most hand- 
some of snakes. No description can give any idea of the beautiful 
sheen and the play of metallic tints of blue and green which sparkle 
from every part of the body, colours which, alas, it is impossible to 
preserve after death. 
Color and markings (in life). Above, light brown with a 
dorsal series of large darker colored spots, circular, oval, or rhomboidal 
in shape, sometimes confluent. Each one is edged with black and 
outside again with yellow, these two colors descending upon the 
sides in a regular series of V shaped marks each of which encloses a 
white spot. Below, whitish or yellowish, dappled with brown at the 
sides. A black streak along the middle of the head, and one on each 
side, from the eye to the corner of the mouth. Python reticulatus has 
the rostral shield and the first four upper labials deeply pitted. This 
will serve at once to distinguish it from the other two species of 
python, P. molurus and P. curtus which are found in this part of the 
world and have only the first two labials pitted. P. molurus, the com- 
mon Indian python, has been recently found at Lopburi. P. curtus 
has not yet been discovered but it probably exists in the Peninsula. } 
Habitat. Burma and Indo-China to the Malay Peninsula and 
Archipelago. 
Family ILysiipar. 
5. Cylindrophus rufus. 
¢ v ; : 
Siamese. 31W9U (ngu kon khop). Very common in Bang- 
Lael 
kok. ound beneath logs of wood or in heaps of earth or dead leaves, 
or in holes in the ground. Frequently to be met with crossing the roads 
