Trofessor Traill's Description of the Flaps JamesouL 53 



Magiier-vmorne, list October 1842. 

 Sir, — I am in receipt of your favour of the 17tli inst., 

 making enquiry in regard to INIr Thomson's tilting machine, 

 and in reply, I am happy in the opportunity of bearing testimony 

 to the great value and usefulness of the invention. Five of 

 them were erected at our works here, about five years ago, 

 and have been in constant and daily use since, and nothing 

 could be more admirable than the ease and simplicity with 

 which they work, or the perfect manner they answer the pur- 

 pose for which they were intended, and in that time, Avithout 

 any of them requiring the replacement of almost a single bolt. 

 Altogether 1 have seen no apparatus of the kind so well 

 adapted for loading vessels with coals, limestone, or other 

 articles of a similar heavy description. — I am, Sir, your 



obedient Servant. 



Tiio. Maxwell, 



James Slight, Esq., Edinburgh. 



Description of (he Elaps Jameso/ii, a New Species of Serpent 

 from Demerara. By Thomas S. Traill, M.D., F.R.S.E. 

 M.W. S., Sec. Communicated by the Author.* 



This very elegant serpent was received from Demerara 

 many years ago, with a collection of other snakes ; and ap- 

 pears to have hitherto escaped the researches of the natural- 

 ists who have published on the animals of Equinoxial Ame- 

 rica. I have lately e.xamined it anatomically, and find it pro- 

 vided with true moveable fangs, and with a gland, not granu- 

 lar, like the salivary glands of innocuous snakes, but very 

 much resembling that of our viper, covered with an albugi- 

 neous tunic, and sending a small but distinct duct to the root 

 of its fangs. Not having met with a description of this spe- 

 cies in any work on ophiology, I consider it as an undescribed 

 species, and propose naming it in honour of the distinguished 

 Professor of Natural History in this University. 



The general form of this serpent, and length of its tail, ap- 

 proximate it to the genus Coluber of M. Schlegel ; its physio- 

 gnomy to his genus Lycodon ; but its fangs, the whole structure 



" Read before the Wernerian Natural History Society, Dec, 10. 1812. 



