804 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXVI. 



downward prolongation of the snout, and equally peculiar pro- 

 nounced furrow in the chin. The tail is a flattened vertical 

 paddle similar to that in other hydrophids. 



Colour. — Very variable. The young are bluish or bluish-grey 

 with many well defined, black annuli, often dilated vertebrally. 

 As age advances these bands become more and more obscured, 

 first disappearing ventrally, to become dorsal bars, which in old 

 specimens may disappear altogether. In old adults the dorsum is 

 frequently a uniform bluish or bluish-grej 7 , merging at raidcosta to 

 yellow or yellowish ventrally. Both dorsal and ventral hues again 

 are subject to much modification according to whether the speci- 

 men has recently desquamated or is about to do so. In the latter 

 case the yellow on the belly becomes often tinged with brown. 



Identification. — The downward projection of the rostral shield 

 to below the level of the lip and the groove in the chin are both 

 features peculiar to this species, and make identification as easy 

 as it is certain. 



The suture from the nostril passes to the 1st labial, a very 

 unusual feature seen in only one other species, viz., Enhydris 

 hardicicJii. 



Habits. — This is far the commonest seasnake around our shores, 

 and extraordinarily plentiful. On the Malabar Coast the fishermen 

 brought them in bucketfuls until deterred from doing so. I have 

 certainly had over fifty brought to me in one morning taken from 

 their nets. On the Coromandel Coast at Madras and at Gopalpore I 

 have seen the nets brought in with a dozen or more of these 

 snakes among the haul. At Cannanore the men in the 75th 

 Carnatic Infantry fishing in the sea with lines, more often it 

 seemed to me hooked a "Jew's nose " than a fish ! 



It frequently comes up tidal rivers, and several were captured 

 for me at Watiya in Burma at a distance of 40 miles from the sea. 

 It has been taken in Tolly's Nullah, Calcutta, 80 miles from the sea. 

 In Cannanore I kept several of these snakes in a dry masonry 

 trough among my flower pots, where they lived many days without 

 any water. Here they crawled about in a clumsy awkward 

 fashion, but progression was far less hampered than is the case in 

 the very thin necked seasnakes. All these specimens were conspi- 

 cuously gentle creatures, that I failed to provoke to bite an 

 offending object. This placid disposition is well exemplified by the 

 fact that the sepoys and others who habitually bathed at Canna- 

 nore were never bitten, plentiful as I have shown that the " .lew's 

 nose " is there. 



The Sexes. — Females appear to be more numerous than males 

 from the few notes at ray disposal. In Cannanore of 13 specimens 

 sexed 8 were $ . Again of 19 foetuses obtained in the same 

 station 12 proved to be $ . Except for the basal swelling in the tail 



