ON THE COMMON INDIAN SNAKES. 949 



from their superior length, and position resemble the canine teeth 

 of dogs and wolves. " Fasciatus " is from the Latin meaning 

 handed. 



(b) English. — I think the best name for it is Anderson's Wolf- 

 snake, a literal reference to its specific name being equally appro- 

 priate, to many of the species. 



(c) Vernacular. — Mr. Hampton tells me that about the Ruby 

 Mines in Upper Burma it is called Ngan-do-ja. This is the same 

 as one of the Burmese names for the banded krait, and implies 

 " banded royal snake.*' 



General characters. — It is a snake of moderate dimensions, and 

 rather slender proportions, very strikingly and handsomely marked, 

 and on this account likely to attract attention. The head is mar- 

 kedly flattened, and the snout broadly rounded. There is no ridge 

 from the eyebrows forwards. The nostril occupies the whole 

 depth of the suture dividing the nasal shields, but is nevertheless 

 moderate in size, as the suture occurs at the lowest depth of these 

 shields. The eye is rather small, and the iris, unlike all the other 

 species of the genus that I have seen, is heavily flecked with grey 

 so that the vertical shape of the pupil is veiy apparent. The neck 

 is fairly evident, the body long, round in section, and with glossy 

 scales, and the tail is long, being about one-fourth the total length 

 of the snake. The belly is somewhat abruptly turned up on either 

 side of the ventral shields, i.e., angulate. 



Colour and markings. — The head is quite black above, and the 

 edge of the upper lip, the lower lips, and chin are yellow, more or 

 less mottled with black. The body and tail are alternately banded 

 black, and yellow or dove colour with very jagged outlines. The 

 black bands completely encircle the snake anteriorly and posteri- 

 orly, but may be more or less incomplete ventrally in the middle of 

 the body. They are broader anteriorly than posteriorly, and num- 

 ber 23 to 33 on the bod) and 14 to 18 on the tail in my Burmese 

 specimens, 32 to 38 on the body and 15 to 20 in Shillong speci- 

 mens, the anterior involving 9 to 10 scales vertebrally in the length 

 of the snake. The intermediate bands are yellow, wheat, or dove- 

 coloured, and often more or less subdivided by narrow or broad 



black crossbars. Such a specimen probably accounts for Ander- 

 1 



