A POPULAR TREATISE ON INDIAN SNAKES. 26] 



zontally. The nostril is large, and placed laterally. The neck is slightly 

 constricted. The body of somewhat robust proportions is flattened in a 

 lateral direction (i.e. compressed), and is from 3^ to 4 times the length 

 of the slowly tapering, and cylindrical tail. 



Colour. — The prevailing hue on the head and body, including 

 the tail, is dorsally an olivaceous- green or olivaceous-brown. In -the 

 anterior half or three-fifths of the body length this is uniform or nearly 

 so, but in the posterior part many scales are irregularly margined with 

 black, so as to form a reticulate pattern with a tendency to form 

 crossbars. Individuals differ in colour : I have seen some as yellow as 

 a batter pudding, and others of a hue as dark as sepia. The shields 

 bordering the lips, the scales at the side of the throat, and the scales 

 baneath the body, and tail are more or less margined posteriorly 

 with black ; in fact, these marks form a very characteristic trait in the 

 physiognomy. On the belly the regularity of these marks forci- 

 bly reminds one of a tape measure, but in individuals, they may be 

 absent in whole or in part. The belly is greyish-white, dirty-white or 

 yellowish, the latter hue often more pronounced about the throat. 

 The skin is blackish, mottled with fawn or whitish in irregularly 

 transverse streaks, but is usually not seen owing to the overlapping of 

 the scales. The overlapped margins of the scales, however, partake of 

 this cutaneous coloration, and in young specimens light bluish-gre^ 

 irregular crossbars are usually conspicuous, especially anteriorly. In 

 young the prevailing colour is often more greyish or bluish than one 

 sees in the adult, but the markings and general appearance are very 

 closely similar. 



Identification. — Here I must digress, to emphasise a very interest- 

 ing and important peculiarity in this snake. The scales of snakes 

 counted across the back will be found, with very few exceptions, to be 

 arranged in odd rows varying from 13 in the Callophids, etc., to as 

 many a-s 75 in Python reticulatus. The exceptions to this rule which 

 concern us are Zaocys dhumnades and Z, nigromarginalus in which 

 they number 1G in the middle of the body, and Stoliczkaia khasiensis 

 where they are 30 * Further, in some snakes the same number of 

 rows is maintained in the whole length of the body, but in others they 



* In the two families Typhlopidae and Glauconudse where the scales appear to be in even 

 numbers, if the median row on the belly (which in these snakes is not specialised, but is 

 exactly like the roivs of scales on the back and sides) is considered in its true light, viz., as 

 the analogue of the belly scutes, then the scales are in reality odd in number. 



