Obituary Xotice. 2)59 



and invisible to the naked eye. I communicated this to 

 Mr. H. S. Ferguson, the Director of the Museum, and he 

 informed Mr. G. A. Boulenger, who, while verifying and 

 confirming the faintly grooved posterior maxillary teeth in the 

 genus Nm'a, a discovery * made by liim since the publication 

 of the ' Fauna of British India,' does not seem to liave been 

 aware of the more or less grooved palatine series of teeth as well. 

 At his instance I was led to a series of observations on the teeth 

 of various poisonous Colubrine snakes of the subfamily 

 Elapinse so far as they are represented in Travancore, and, in 

 addition, to the grooved functiional and reserve fangs. 



Posterior 



maxillary. Palatine. Pter^-goid. 



Naia bnngm'us has 3 17 12 



tripudinns has 1 5 14 



Bunganis cceruleus has .... 3 10 13 



In the above not only are the posterior maxillary and palatine 

 teeth more or less grooved, but all the pterygoid and man- 

 dibular scries are likewise marked with faintly depressed 

 lines resembling grooves. Furthermore, in connexion with 

 an examination of two skulls of Hemihungarus nigrescens. a 

 small poisonous Culubrine snake fairly common on the hills, 

 I found the palatine teeth indistinctly grooved. 



Government Museum, Trevandrum, 

 October 26, 1903. 



OUtuary Notice : Ue. William Francis. 



Dk. William Francis was born in London on the 16th of 

 February, 1817. He was educated at University College School 

 and St. Omer. He left St. Omer in 1834 and proceeded to 

 Crefelt, but in the autumn of the same year went to Gera, where 

 he remained for about two years. In 1836 he returned to England 

 and spent a year at the London University (University College), 

 afterwards devoting some time to learning the printing business 

 under Mr. Hichard Taylor, to whom he had been apprenticed some 

 time previously. He then went to Berlin, and thence to Giessen, 

 where he studied under Liebig, and did much original work, chiefly 

 on the salts of molybdenum. He took his degree of Doctor of 

 Philosophy at Giessen in 1842. 



He early developed a taste for Natural History, and during 

 his stay at Gera he devoted much of his time to entomological study 

 and pursuits. While in England, in 1837, "fresh from the teach- 

 ings of Ehrenberg, and profoundly influenced by the spirit of 

 scientific research which then, as now, prevailed in Germany," he 

 " suggested to Mr. Eichard Taylor the establishment of a journal 

 in which, while its pages were freely open to the original contri- 

 * ' Catalogue of Snaka^* iii. p. 373 (1896). 



