64 REPTILES AND BIRDS. 
or black, banded with white or yellowish white. They are so 
abundant in the Indian seas that some of them are taken with every 
haul of a fishing-net, and they are helpless. and seemingly blind when 
out of the water, the fishermen commonly seizing them one after 
the other by the nape and throwing them back into the sea. Some 
of them (AZicrocephalophis of Lesson) have the head very small and 
the neck exceedingly slender, while the compressed body is large 
and thick. ; 
THE COLUBRINE VENOMOUS SNAKES. 
These are comprised under the one family, Z/af7de, all of which 
have an erect, immovable, grooved, or perforated fang, in the fore- 
part of the maxillary bone. There is little in their external appear- 
ance to distinguish them from the harmless Colubrine Snakes, to 
which they are more nearly akin—in all but their poison-fangs—than 
they are to the Rattlesnakes and Vipers; yet some of the most 
poisonous of Ophidians appertain to this family, as exemplified by 
the well-known Cobras of the Indian region and of Africa, and also 
by some of the worst Snakes that inhabit Australia. In the colony 
of Victoria alone as many as ten species of Snakes are known, one 
only of which, Morelia variegata, is harmless ; and one only of them, 
the formidable Death Adder (Acanthopis antarctica), belongs to the 
sub-order of the Viperine Snakes. The rest are included among the 
Colubriform Venomous Snakes, and most of the accidents from 
poisonous Snakes in that colony are due to what is there known as 
the Carpet Snake (Hoplocephalus curtus), while the Snake that bears 
the same name in the adjacent colony of New South Wales is the 
innocuous Morelia spilotes, which is a small Serpent of the family of 
Pythonide. Of the total number of Snakes known in all Australia, by 
far the greater number are venomous, which is the reverse of what 
occurs elsewhere. Only about five species, however, are really 
dangerous throughout the great island-continent, for in many of them 
the poison is by no means virulent. Thus, of Demansia psammophis, 
which sometimes exceeds four feet in length, Mr. Krefit remarks . 
that “its bite does not cause any more irritation than the sting of a 
bee.” Also, that “the bite of Hofplocephalus variegatus is not suf- 
ficiently strong to endanger the life of a man. I have been wounded 
by it several times,” writes Mr. Krefft, ‘and experienced no bad 
symptoms beyond a slight headache; the spot where the fang 
entered turning blue to about the size of a shilling for a few days.” 
Again, of Brachysoma diadema, “This very handsome little snake 
is venomous, but never offers to bite,-and may. be handled with 
