— 125 — 



it is scarcely necessary to add that, though the first speci- 

 men is stated to have been picked up on this coast, opposite 

 the islets where it ordinarily dwells, and from which it might 

 easily have swum or been transported on the branch of a tree, 

 that this fact alone is quite insufficient to warrant the idea 

 that any indigenous genus of Snakes ever existed in Mauri- 

 tius. That idea is negatived by the silence of all early histo- 

 rians, as clearly as by the emphatic declaration of M, Julian 

 Dcsjardins in a paper read before the Natural History Society 

 of Mauritius, the parent of our own Institute, so far back as 

 August 1837. He says : " Notre ile est peut-etre, aprea 

 Bourbon, le point du globe qui, en general, en egard a son 

 6tendue, recele le moins de reptiles. II n'est point de lieu 

 an monde oii la securite soit aussi grande sous ce rapport. 

 Bicn que Ton se rappelle avoir rencontre deux ou trois fois 

 des Serpents (and here he refers in a foot note to the famous 

 Boa Constrictor killed at Eeduit, and to a " Couleuvre rousse " 

 (Coluber rufus) found in the demolition of a house in the 

 (Caudan) on peut certifier (he goes on to say) en peu de mots 

 que nul Ophidien ne se trouve sur la grande ile." 



It is strange he was not more astonished under these cir- 

 cumstances at their being found on the little islets close by. 

 He was perhaps unaware however, that half a dozen kinds of 

 Lizards and as many of Snakes, could be picked up there in a 

 morning excursion. Of the Batrachians, or fourth order of 

 Eeptiles, no trace was found by us at Kound Island. — Indeed 

 as there is no permanent fresh water, it may be doubted whe- 

 ther Frogs or Toads could exist. 



The Eeptiles are followed, according to the usual classifica- 

 tion of the animal kingdom, by the Fishes, but although these 

 ■were swarming in the large rockpools near the landing place, 

 we did not think it worth while to spend time in collecting 

 what did not promise much novelty compared with the deni* 

 zens of the neighbouring seas. I detached however from the 

 rocks the two or three Molluscs now produced, they seem to 

 me like those found on the coasts of this Island. 



One terrestrial gasteropod however, belonging to the second 

 class or " operculata," and to the African subgenus of it, 



