182 Prof. M'Coy on the Recent Zoology 



they are common. Of these a kind of turtle-soup was made at 

 the dinner of the Melbourne Acclimatization Society ; but the 

 taste for it has not yet been acquired. 



The Crocodilia do not come down the Australian coast so 

 far south as Victoria, the largest of the Sauria being the Hydro- 

 saurus varius, called " iguana '^ by the colonists, of five or six 

 feet. Of the skin of this species some slippers and other small 

 articles in the Intercolonial Exhibition now open in Melbourne 

 are manufactured with much elegance. The natives use it for 

 food. The Trachydosauriis rugosus, Cyclodus gigas, Hinnulia 

 taeniolata, and Grammatophora barbata abound in the warmer 

 north part of the colony, but gradually disappear towards the 

 south coast. 



Of snakes, the following species occur, and the larger and 

 more common are roasted and eaten by the natives ; — Morelia 

 variegata, or carpet-snake, the only Python and non-venomous 

 snake in Victoria, and confined to the northern boundary; 

 AcantJiophis antarctica, or " death-adder,^^ also confined to the 

 northern boundary; Hoplocephalus curtus, or "tiger snake/^ 

 common about Melbourne, and the cause of most of the acci- 

 dents from snake-bites ; H. flageUum, or " little whipsnake," 

 H. coronoides, and H. super-bus. This latter species, with 

 fifteen rows of scales, the two outer rows with red centres, 

 is very common about Prahran, near Melbourne, though said 

 to occur only in Tasmania; the neck is not dilatable into a 

 flat hood, as in the H. curtus. The " black snake " {Pseudechis 

 porphyraicus) is rather rare ; and the P. australis is only found 

 with us near our northern boundary. The common "brown 

 snake " may possibly include two species ; but I doubt the dis- 

 tinctions between Pseudonaja nuchalis and Diemenia superciliaris 

 being permanent ; at any rate, specimens with the proportions 

 of the rostral shield of the latter are common, and several inter- 

 mediate proportions varying to that characteristic of the former 

 occur. Diemenia reticulata is very common on the Lower Murray 

 boundary. 



The Batrachia, with the exception of the common green 

 frog [Ranhyla aurea) are rarely seen or heard, — the true tree- 

 frogs (Hyla) inhabiting the lofty gum-trees, and the Lymno- 

 dynastes tasmanicus, L. dorsalis, and L. affinis burrowing in the 

 sand during the day. 



PISCES. 



The species of fish good for the table are very much fewer in 

 Victoria than in Europe ; and great interest attaches, therefore, 

 with many of the general public, to the endeavours of the 



