64 REPTILES AND BIRDS. 



or black, banded with white or yellowish white. They are so 

 abundant in the Indian seas that some of them are taken with every 

 haul of a fishing-net, and they are helpless and seemingly blind when 

 out of the water, the fishermen commonly seizing them one after 

 the other by the nape and throwing them back into the sea. Some 

 of them {Microcephalophis of Lesson) have the head very small and 

 the neck exceedingly slender, while the compressed body is large 

 and thick. 



THE COLUBRINE VENOMOUS SNAKES. 



These are comprised under the one family, Elapida, all of which 

 have an erect, immovable, grooved, or perforated fang, in the fore- 

 part of the maxillary bone. There is little in their external appear- 

 ance to distinguish them from the harmless Colubrine Snakes, to 

 which they are more nearly akin in all but their poison-fangs than 

 they are to the Rattlesnakes and Vipers ; yet some of the most 

 poisonous of Ophidians appertain to this family, as exemplified by 

 the well-known Cobras of the Indian region and of Africa, and also 

 by some of the worst Snakes that inhabit Australia. In the colony 

 of Victoria alone several species of Snakes are known, one only 

 of which, Morelia variegata, is harmless ; and one only of them, 

 the formidable Death Adder (Acanthopis antarctica], belongs to the 

 sub-order of the Viperine Snakes. The rest are included among the 

 Colubriform Venomous Snakes, and most of the accidents from 

 poisonous Snakes in that colony are due to what is there known as 

 the Carpet Snake (Hoplocephalus curtus\ while the Snake that bears 

 the same name in the adjacent colony of New South Wales is the 

 innocuous Morelia spilotes, which is a small Serpent of the family of 

 Pythonidce. Of the total number of Snakes known in all Australia, by 

 far the greater number are venomous, which is the reverse of what 

 occurs elsewhere. Only about five species, however, are really 

 dangerous throughout the great island-continent, for in many of them 

 the poison is by no means virulent. Thus, of Diemensia psammophis, 

 which sometimes exceeds four feet in length, Mr. Kreftt remarks 

 that " its bite does not cause any more irritation than the sting of a 

 bee." Also, that " the bite of Hoplocephalus variegatus is not suf- 

 ficiently strong to endanger the life of a man. I have been wounded 

 by it several times," writes Mr. Krefft, "and experienced no bad 

 symptoms beyond a slight headache ; the spot where the fang 

 entered turning blue to about the size of a shilling for a few days." 

 Again, of Brachysoma diade.ma, "This very handsome little snake 

 is venomous, but never offers *.o bite, and may be handled with 



