556 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIX. 



appear shortly in this journal. The genus therefore as now constructed 

 includes 21 species. It is very closely allied to the genus Simotes in fact 

 it remains to be seen whether there is a natural division between the 

 two genera, and if so again whether some of the species as now 

 arranged have not been intermixed.* 



The variegated kukri snake. 

 OLTGOhON SUBGHISEUS (Dumdril et Bibron). 

 History — There is little if any doubt but that the earliest specimen 

 of suhgriseus of which we have any record is that collected at Vizaga- 

 patam and figured by Russellf 113 years ago, under the vernacular 

 name '* wanapa pam " scientific nomenclature in those days not having 

 come into use. It is possible too that the snake from Canara alluded 

 to by Jerdon as Xenodon dubium in 1853J was this species, as he says 

 the scales were in 15 rows, but he gives no description of it so that his 

 name has been ignored. I cannot however see cause for dismissing 

 the name tmniolata§ applied by the same author to this snake in 

 1853 in favour of Dumeril and Bibron's name suhgriseus in 1854.11 



Nomenclature (a) Scientific. — The generic name (from the Greek 

 ox; Y of f ew? an j oS<m t oth ) was given by Boie to a Javan snake ( 0. bitor- 

 quatus) in 1827 on account of the paucity of its teeth compared with 

 other ophidians. The specific title is from the Latin " sub " beneath, 

 and " griseus " grey, the original specimen being this hue on the belly, 

 a circumstance due, I think, to the preservative since it is white in life. 

 English, (b) — The Variegated Kukri Snake. The name kukri snake 

 suggests itself to me as appropriate to the species of the genera Oligodon 



* My doubts are the outcome of a study of the skulls of 5 species of these genera in my 

 collection. Uiinther (Rept. Brit. Ind., p. 205) divided the genera on the palatine teeth 

 including as Simotes all those species in which these teeth were present, and reserving the 

 name Oligodon for those in which they were absent. Boulenger (Cat., pp. 215 and 233) find- 

 ing that species which he considered Oligodon on other grounds possessed two or three 

 palatine teeth, divided the genera on the presence or absence of the pterygoid testh, conced- 

 ing the name Simotes to the former, and Olig •don to the latter, and supplemented this 

 arrangement by the number of the maxillary teeth, 6 to 8 being present in Oligodon and 8 to 

 12 in Simotes. As a matter of fact neither arrangement is tenable as both palatine and 

 pterygoid teeth are present in two out of three of the species in my collection which Mr. 

 Boulenger considers Oligodon, viz., sutgriseus, and venustus. In the third case (dorsalis) their 

 absence is doubtful. 



t Ind. f^erp., Vol. 1, Plate XIX. J J. A S., Bengal, XXII, p. 528. 



§ J A S., Bengal, XXII, p. 528 (not to be confused with the Coronella tceniolata 

 of Bcettger which is the Rhadmea undnlata of Brazil under present day nomenclature). 



1 VII., p. 59. 



