2 Journal of the F.M.S. Museums. [Vol. X, 



Sea snakes can be conveyed long distances alive if 

 attention is paid to their method of transport. They are 

 best kept in a jar or basket and, if not overcrowded and 

 placed in a cool spot with enough water to keep them 

 moist, they will lie almost motionless and live for a week 

 or more. In water they are continually on the move, 

 jostling and disturbing one another. The advantage of 

 obtaining fresh specimens, and of being able to prepare 

 them one's self is considerable, and adds greatly to their 

 value for study purposes. 



Out of their native habitat sea snakes are helpless and 

 usually extremely sluggish and unaggressive. Although 

 I have examined many hundreds of them alive, I have 

 never seen one make any attempt to bite except under great 

 provocation. The fishermen in the Gulf, although well 

 aware of the dangerous nature of their bite, have little 

 dread of them, and those that happen to get into their boats 

 with the fish, are picked up by the tail and flung back into 

 the water. 



Judging by the numbers of sea snakes that can be seen 

 in the Gulf of Siam and Straits of Malacca when travelling 

 by steamer along the ordinary trade route, it isSpossible 

 that many new and interesting forms will be found -by deep 

 sea collecting. In certain localities, when the sea is calm, 

 they may often be seen in hundreds, chiefly in the early 

 morning and late afternoon, as they lie on the surface 

 of the water, apparently to bask in the sun. As soon as 

 they feel the wash of the steamer, they dive almost vertically 

 downwards and disappear. 



At the head of the Gulf where the coast is well sheltered, 

 sea snakes abound ; farther down the Peninsula, where 

 it is exposed to the full force of the N. E. monsoon, they 

 appear to be less numerous. Two sheltered spots are an 

 exception to this, namely, the mouth of the Inland Sea, 

 Singgora, and the Bay of Patani. 



By systematically collecting at every available spot, 

 it has been possible in course of time to search the whole 

 of the Gulf very thoroughly. The result of this has been 

 to bring out one noteworthy fact, namely, the curiously 

 local distribution of many of the species. Certain forms 

 will be more or less abundant along a small stretch of coast, 

 at one or more river mouths, and almost or entirely absent 

 in other parts of the Gulf. The Perak coast collections 

 shew this same peculiarity, but as they have been made 

 oyer a much smaller coast hne, it is not so marked. It is 

 difficult to assign a reason for this phenomenon. The 

 natural conditions at the mouths of these rivers, generally 

 mud-flats, are apparently identical, so that it would not 

 in any way appear to be governed by the food requirements 

 of these species. It may be that they are estuarinc in their 

 habits, and that when they get carried out to sea, as must 

 frequently happen, they perish, either from want of suitable 

 nourishment, or by being devoured by fish or other enemies. 



