51' REPTILES. 



single piece, short, and resembling in form a slightly elevated triedral 

 pyramid, one ridge being above; from which circumstance they have 

 been called Hog-noses* 



HuRRiA, Daud. 



These are small Colubers of India, in which the plates on the base of 

 the tail are always simple, and those on the point double ; these anoma- 

 lies, however, merit but little attention f. 



DiPSAS, Laurent. — Bungarus, Oppel, 



Have the body compressed, much narrower than the head; scales of the 

 spinal range larger than the others, a circumstance which we shall find 

 again in Bungarus. Such is the 



D. indica, Cuv. ; Colub. bucephalus, Sh. ; Seb. I, xliii;^;. Black, 

 ringed with white. 



Dendrophis, Fitz. — Ahcetulla, Gray, 



Have the scales of the spinal range larger, as in Dipsas, and those along 

 the flanks narrower; but their head is not broader than the body, which 

 is very long and slender: the muzzle obtuse §. 



Drynius, Merr. — Passerita, Gray, 



Have the body as long and slender as in the preceding subdivision; but 

 there is a little slender and pointed appendage to the end of the muzzle]]. 



Dryophis, Fitz., 



Have the same thread-like form, the muzzle pointed, but no appendage ; 

 their scales are equal ^. 



* The Heterodon -noirutrc, Beauv., hcterodnn, Daud., and the heterodon tachete 

 (Cenchris mokeson, Daiul.), belong to this genus; but Beaiivois has established it on 

 a character which is found in a great many Colubers, viz., that of the posterior max- 

 illary teeth being the largest; and Daudin appears to have known his Mofieson by a 

 drawing onlj', we mean the Hng-jwse of Catesby, II, pi. Ivi, which Daud. himself lias 

 cited. A part of its tail-plates is sometimes entire; but at the base, and not near 

 the point, as Daud. describes it. Linnaeus had correctly indicated this Serpent in his 

 tenth edition, under the name of Coluber constrictor; why he changed it in the twelfth 

 to Boa concortrix, is not known (a). 



f Hurriah, a barbarous name, taken from that which designates the species, Russ. 

 XL, copied Daud. V. xlvi, 2. Another, Merr. II, iv. 



X Dipsas, the Greek name of a Serpent whose bite was thought to cause a fatal 

 thirst, from the Greek word dipsa, thirst. The fig. of Conrad Gesner, at the word 

 dipsas, is precisely of this subgenus. The Dip. indica is altogether different from 

 the Fipera atrax, Mus. Ad. Fred. XXII, 2, with which Linnaeus, Laurentini, and 

 Daudin have confounded it. 



§ Col. aheetuUa; — Col. decortis, Shaw; — Col. caracaras, Id. (Bungarus filijormis, 

 Oppel.), to which I add the Sibons, Fitz.; at least in the Col. caienulatus, Russ. pi. 

 XV, the dorsal scales are rhomboidal and larger, as in the ahcetulla. 

 II Col. nasHius, Russ. Serp. pi. xii and xiii. 



^ Col. fulgidus, Daud. VI, Ixxx; Seb. II, liii, 9; — Dryinus eencus, Spix, III. 



^^ (a) The author in this note has confoimded three species of Serpents which 

 are not distinct — the Heterodon, the Trigonocephnlus tisiphone or Movkason Snake, and 

 the Coluber constrictor or Blnck Snake. The Heterodon is a harmless animal, and 

 has the plates on the top of the head arranged, 3, 2, 3, 2. — Eng. Ed. 



