N THE COM MO N INDIA N SNA KES. 539 



our Society has a specimen from Aden Hinterland, the British 

 Museum has examples from the south (Aden and Hadramaut) and the 

 east coast (Muscat). The exact northern boundary is as yet not 

 known. It probably occurs throughout Persia, its north-western limits 

 being, I believe, not precisely demarcated. It extends beyond 

 Persian limits to the north, a specimen in the British Museum having 

 come from Askabad in Transeaspia. 



It occurs throughout Baluchistan and Afghanistan, the northern 

 limits in the latter country being uncertain. 



In India its distribution is shown in Map 2, and it will be observed 

 that in the northern part of the Punjab the boundaries are not 

 clearly defined. Again, the Ganges appears to be the boundarv in 

 North-Eastern India. It does not appear to inhabit the southern part 

 of the Malabar Coast, The northern boundary of this tract is con- 

 jectured by Blanford to be the Tapti River, but the Echis occurs 

 plentifully well below that river (Ratnagiri). 



So far as Ceylon is concerned, though Boulenger makes no special 

 reference to this island in its habitat, I think there is little, if any, 

 doubt that it occurs in the Northern Province, the fauna of which, 

 according to Blanford and others, agrees with that of Southern India 

 to the east of the Western Ghats. Ferguson * savs : Mr. E. Wytea- 

 lingam of the Medical Department, an industrious and excellent 

 collector of our reptiles, has recently sent about a dozen specimens 

 of this small viper from Mullaitivu, thus proving that it is a common 

 snake in that part of the island. Haly f notes against this species : 

 '• Two specimens (very bad state) from Mullaitivu, presented by W. 

 Ferguson, Esq." Mr. W. Ferguson, with whom I was personally 

 acquainted for some years, was an excellent observer and not likely 

 to make a mistake about a snake so easy to identify. I have given in 

 Map 2 all the localities with which I am acquainted in Indian limits 

 from which it has been reported. 



Its abundance in various parts of India differs considerably. In 

 many localities it is specially common, but probably nowhere more 

 so than in and about Ratnagiri, where it exists, according to Vidal 

 and Candy, in numbers almost incredible. The former in this 

 Journal X says that in the Ratnagiri District alone during 6 years 



* Kept. Fauna of Ceylon, 187<>, p. 2o. f First report of the Collection of Snakes 



+ Vol. V,p. 64. in the Colombo Museum, J 886, p. IS. 



