96 JOURNAL, NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY OF SIAM. Vol. I. 
the road one morning at Samsen. It never grew accustomed to being 
handled, and the photograph was taken after it had beem four months 
in capitivity, when it was nearly as wild and fierce as on the day it 
was captured. Young ones I have kept were more gentle and soon 
becanze tame. 
The largest specimen J know of measured 1710 mm. but was 
incomplete. The tail was 300 mm, jong, and the lost tip would 
probably have added another 380 mm. to it. 
Color (in life ). Above, yellowish-brown, fawn or fawn-grey, 
with a distinct reddish tinge posteriorly. Along each side of the fore- 
part of the body are three black stripes, the upper, broad and 
conspicuous, the second, half the width and shorter, the third, very thin 
and much broken up, or occasionally absent altogether. Below, 
yellowish white in front, pale pearly grey behind. Subcaudals, 
whitish. A black line across the occiput and three more radiating 
trom the eye. 
Distribution. From the E. Himalayas to S8. China and the 
Malay Archipelago. 
18. Dendrophis pictus. The Painted Tree Snake. 
A fairly common snake, and widely distributed everywhere, 
frequenting the open brush-wood in the fields, the betel-nut and fruit 
gardens, and the compounds in the very heart of the town; loving the 
sunshine and on the move at all hours of the day. In dull weather it is 
much less active. It is thoroughly arboreal in its habits, and 
although it may be seen upon the ground, it is, I believe, only when 
in search of food. The speed at which it can travel when disturbed is 
amazing, and 1s almost lightning-like in its rapidity. 
Curiously enough, for a creature of such marked arboreal 
tendencies, its diet appears to consist entirely of frogs, not only 
tree-frogs, which are comparatively rare, but the common frogs of the 
padi-fields. I have never found anything else in the stomachs of 
specimens I have examined, and those I have kept in captivity lived 
entirely upon this diet, refusing all other kinds of food. The com- 
monest field frog here is Rana limnocaris, and these constitute their 
main diet, but they are by no means particular. Owyglossis lima 
they refused, but there must be something very distasteful about this 
little frog, for I] have never known any snake to eat it. 
