Loligo. 419 
I omitted to state, in regard to the specimen of the Yellow Snake 
which had recently shed its skin, that it hasa much smaller proportion of 
the dark blue scales on the middle and posterior portions of its body than 
any others I have met with. Mr. Bell may perhaps ascertain whether 
this variation be accidental, or whether it should be ascribed to a differ- 
ence of age or of sex. I shall also mention, on the authority of some 
planters of credit, that a number of Yellow Snakes, as 10 or 12, are 
not unfrequently met with in the woody parts of the Island with their tails 
twisted together, but the rest of their bodies free. This chiefly occurs 
about April and May, at their breeding season as is supposed: when 
thus surprised, they will raise their tails and hiss, and it takes them some 
time before they c?n unwind themselves and separate; so that any active 
person armed might then easily decapitate or destroy them. It seems 
not improbable that the sight of similarly convoluted Snakes gave rise to 
the old fable of the Lernean Hydra; and the feat of Hercules may have 
been merely that of a man, who, meeting with such a knot of Serpents, 
had the wit to assail them in their entangled state. 
In the cask there is another sample of our Black Snake, which is some 
inches longer than the individual sent to you last year: pupil round, and 
with the iris deep black and shining. 
I now come to the Afollusea class; and along with a second sample of 
the Loligo forwarded last year, which has been put up entire, with its 
ink bladder undisturbed, and which I believe to be the species alluded to 
by Pere Nicholson at p. 344 of his Histoire Naturelle de St. Domingue, 
you will find in the cask a large specimen that claims, I think, to be a 
new species, and distinct from Loligo sagittata, My reason for this is, 
that all the figures I have seen of the wings of the latter agree with 
Lamarck’s character, ‘le bord supérieur’? (antérieur would have been 
better) ‘* de ces ailes est perpendiculaire a l’axe du corps, et ne s’insére 
** pas de biais, comme dans Je Calmar commun.’’ Animaux sans vert., 
t. 7, p. 663. Now in the present species the anterior border is far from 
being perpendicular, and as far from being rhomboid; it is strictly cor- 
date*. Iregret that its viscera had been taken out previously to my | 
® I have just seen No. 1 of Guérin’s Iconographie of Cuvier'’s Régne Animal, 
Vou. V. EE 2 
