THE COMMON INDIAN SNAKES. 211 



stripes posteriorly. Many departure? from this arrangement may 

 be seen, either towards a confluence, or a disintegration of these 

 marks, and in many specimens the interorbital and diadem marks 

 are not or barety suggested. The belly has been white in all the 

 specimens I have seen. Adults vaiy vory much, but may be 

 grouped thus. 



A. Variety typica. — This may exactly agree with that seen in 

 the young just referred to. The dorsal marks, and those on the head 

 are often much obscured as age advances, and of course are rendered 

 inconspicuous by impending desquamation. I have sometimes how- 

 ever seen the head marks including the quoit very distinct. Many 

 of these specimens have heads tending towards or quite typical of 

 the next variety. The belly is usually white, but often it is 

 more or less suffused with pink especial!)* in the middle line, and 

 there are frequently greyish spots or mottlings at the sides of the 

 ventrals. 



It is a common form — perhaps the commonest — on the N. W. 



Frontier and in Chitral, and I have seen examples from Sind 



"(Sukkur), Rajputana, the Punjab, and many from Baluchistan, 



and Aden Hinterland. It is very nicely figured in our Plate 



(figs. 4, 5 and 6). 



B. Variety atriceps (Fischer). — This variety is usually much lighter 

 than the last, the prevailing hue being buff, pinkish-buff or pale 

 brownish, getting paler in the flanks which may be citron-yellow. 

 A very few isolated scales in some specimens, man)* in others, are of 

 a deep claret colour, and there is great irregularity in the disposition 

 of these. Both head and neck are a brilliant strawberry-scarlet, or 

 more often the scarlet on the neck merges into claret colour on the 

 head, or the two hues may be sharply , and more or less irregularly 

 defined. It is to these black headed specimens that Fischer gave 

 the name atriceps. The belly is usually a uniform clear rose-pink 

 relieved laterally by darkish mottling or spots. Colonel Light says 

 it is the common variety in Bhuj (Cutch) and Blanford mentions 

 it from Rajputana. I found it common in Delhi and the N. W. 

 Frontier, and have seen specimens from Fatehgarh, Palanpur, 

 Multan, Sind and Baluchistan. It is excellently shown in figures 1, 

 2 and 3 of our Plate. 



In some specimens the dorsal spots as seen in variety atriceps. 

 are grouped in such a way as to suggest more or less forcibly the 

 shape and arrangement of the spots seen in variety typica, and such 

 specimens are completely intermediate between the two forms. 

 These specimens are unusual, and in all those I have seen the 

 colouration of the head and the belly conforms much more closely 

 to that of atriceps than typica. I have seen specimens from 

 Baluchistan. 



C. Variety melanoides (Wall). — In this form the prevailing colour 



