2580 SCALED REPTILES 



marbling. The cat snake ranges from the shores of the Adriatic to the neighbor- 

 hood of the Black and Caspian seas, and Africa as far south as 45 N. It inhabits 

 rocky and sunny spots, and feeds mainly if not exclusively on lizards. Although 

 slower than the water snakes, its movements are more rapid than those of the vi- 

 pers. The virulence of its poison is shown by the circumstance that a lizard bitten 

 by one of these snakes died in a minute and a half. 



The tropical regions of the Old World are the home of the typical 



genus (Dipsas) of the subfamily, which is characterized by the long 

 Snakes an ^ compressed body and tail, the sharp distinction of the head from 



the neck, the moderate or large size of the eye, with its vertical pupil, 

 and the normal arrangement of the shields on the head, in which the hinder nasal 

 is more or less markedly hollowed. The number of teeth in the hinder upper jaw- 

 bone varies from ten to twelve, the two or three hinder pair being elongated and 

 grooved, while in the lower jaw the front teeth are the largest. The scales on the 

 body are arranged in from seventeen to twenty-seven longitudinal rows, those of the 

 middle row of the back being larger than the rest; and the medium-sized or long 

 tail has its inferior shields in two rows. These snakes are represented by about 

 twenty species, inhabiting Southern Asia, New Guinea, Northern Asia, and Africa. 

 The majority are inhabitants of forests or scrub jungle, and are almost entirely ar- 

 boreal; but a few are terrestrial, and frequent open country. Many of these snakes 

 attain a length of six or seven feet, and their prevalent ground colors are brown 

 and black. The Indian forms at least are purely nocturnal, and their food consists 

 of mammals, birds, and, more rarely, lizards, and occasionally birds' eggs. It is 

 noteworthy that some species prey entirely on mammals, while others confine their 

 attention to birds. Eight species of the genus are recorded from India, Ceylon, and 

 Burma, while a well-known Malayan form is the ularburong (Dipsas dendrophila) . 



These snakes are represented by two important genera, of which 



ac - ange pj^iodryas is mainly characteristic of the tropical parts of America, 



Snakes although it also occurs in the West Indies and Madagascar; while the 



whip snakes (Dryophis] are confined to India and the Malay countries. 

 In the American genus the hinder fangs are not very large, being not double the 

 height of the solid teeth in front of them. The body and tail are elongated and 

 more or less compressed, the eyes large, and the smooth or keeled scales arranged 

 in from seventeen to twenty-one rows; while the prevailing color is green. The 

 genus is represented by some fifteen species, among which the green snake (P. viri- 

 dissimus) is a well-known form. This species attains a length of nearly three feet, 

 and has upward of two hundred shields on the lower surface of the body. 



In the Indian whip snakes the teeth in the posterior upper jawbone vary in 

 number from twelve to fifteen, one or two near the middle being much enlarged and 

 fang-like. After these comes an interval devoid of teeth, and at the hinder end of 

 the jaw the last two teeth are grooved. In the lower jaw the third or fourth tooth 

 is enlarged and fang-like, those in the hinder part of the series being small and uni- 

 form. The head is long, and markedly distinct from the neck, and the eye rather 

 small, with a horizontal pupil. The scales investing the elongated and compressed 

 body are smooth and without pits, and arranged in fifteen oblique rows, those down 



