SEA SNAKES. 63 
and are arranged into many generic divisions. The majority are 
from the grand Indian region, extending to China and to Australia, 
but there are also several from the New World. ‘The Aerpeton tenta- 
culatum, of Siam, 1s very remarkable from its snout terminating in 
two flexible, cylindrical, scaly tubercles, which are supposed to be 
employed as organs of touch under water—perhaps to discern its 
food, which as yet has not been ascertained. ‘The largest known 
example of this curious Snake is only twenty-five inches long, of 
which the tail measures six inches. 
We now proceed to the first family of Poisonous Snakes, that of 
THE SEA SNAKES ({ydrophide), 
which are very distinct from all that follow, though less so from 
certain of the harmless species appertaining to the two families 
last treated of. Some of their distinctions have been already 
noticed (p. 40), but they are especially characterised by their 
highly compressed tail, indicative of their thoroughly aquatic 
habits.* According to Dr. Giinther, there is no other group of 
Reptiles the species of which are so little known, and the synonymy 
of which is so much confused, as that of the Sea Snakes. Most 
naturalists who have worked on them have been misled by the idea 
that the species were not nearly so numerous as they actually are. 
Mr. W. Theobald makes out as many as twenty-five inhabiting the 
Bay of Bengal and the adjacent seas, to which area this group of 
reptiles is mainly confined, a few species extending to northern 
Australia, and one, the most emphatically pelagic, the /’e/amis bicolor, 
even to the Pacific Ocean. One genus only, F/aturus, approaches 
the Land Snakes in several of its characters; having much the 
physiognomy of an Z/aps, with the cleft of the mouth not turned 
upwards behind, as in other Sea Snakes; the eye also is rather 
small, nor is the tail at all prehensile. There are two species of this 
particular form, one of which, /. scifatus, is rather common, and its - 
geographic range extends from the Bay of Bengal and the China seas 
to the coasts of New Zealand; the distribution of the other, ?. 
Fischeri, being nearly as extensive. The great genus /ydrophis has 
the posterior part of the body highly compressed ; and most of the 
species are more or less of a bluish lead-colour, like that of the sea, 
_ *® Varieties of this family are extremely numerous in the southern Chinese Sea, 
_the Straits of Banka, Malacca, and Sunda; but from being known to be extremely 
poisonous, are seldom molested.—ED. 
