234 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XV1U. 



Dillwyn describes this snake clinging to the "trunk of a tree, head 

 downwards, in a very extraordinary manner, and I have seen it 

 under almost exactly similar circumstances. My specimen was 

 stationary, clinging (one could not say reclining) head downwards, 

 about 30 feet from the ground, to a large bare trunk, which rose almost 

 perpendicularly. I marvelled at the tenacity of its grip in such a 

 situation. It had thrown its body into a very wide S across the limb, 

 and it strikes me now very forcibly, after reading Flower's and Shel- 

 ford's observations, that it may have been " gathering itself" for a 

 leap. The enraptured observer will be even more captivated with the 

 grace and agility attending its movements from branch to branch, 

 and the consummate ease with which it will scale a perpendicular 

 trunk. Its flash-like disappearance aloft without apparent effort must 

 be witnessed to be fully appreciated. I very much doubt whether 

 any snake moving along the flat displays greater speed than this 

 species in its arboreal environment. 



But its marvellous attainments do not end here, for this snake is 

 endowed with the capability to spring, or " fly " as some prefer to 

 call this jactatory effort. Here one is forcibly reminded of the 

 eulogistic terms in which the late Professor Owen summed up the 

 athletic performances of these limbless creatures. 



He says : " They can outclimb the monkey, outswim the fish, out- 

 leap the jerboa, and suddenly loosing the coils of their crouching 

 spiral, they can spring into the air and seize the bird upon the 

 wing." 



One has only to be acquainted with Chrysopelea to realise that 

 Owen's words convey no fulsome flattery. 



That it actually can spring is vouched for by more than one reli- 

 able observer. Flower* in 1899 reported having seen " a small one, 

 about 2^ feet long, take a flying leap, from an upstairs window, 

 downward and outward on to a branch of a tree and then crawl away 

 among the foliage. The distance it had jumped was measured, and 

 found to be nearly 8 feet." 



Curiously enough in the very month (May) and year (1899) when 



this record of Flower's was published, Mahon Daly wrote from 



Siam reporting his having witnessed a similar feat. His letter appeared 



in Vol. XII, page 589, of this Journal, and though he could not 



* Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1899, p. C84. 



