INTRODUCTION. 



The second volume of the Indo- Australian Reptiles contains 

 descriptions of all the species of snakes living in the Indo- 

 Australian Archipelago. The material has been treated in the 

 same way as in the first volume, dealing with the Lacertilia, 

 Chelonia and Emydosauria, and I have been able to use the 

 same large collections mentioned in that volume, sent from the 

 western part of the Archipelago : Sumatra and its neighbouring 

 islands, as well as from New Guinea in the east. Moreover, 

 some species have been mentioned living nearest to this region, 

 which may be found there also though they have not yet 

 been discovered. 



The specimens I could examine myself have a ! behind the 

 name of the place where they were collected. Length of head 

 and body means the distance between the tip of the snout 

 and the vent. 



Among the localities is enumerated : Pulu Babi. This is one 

 of the three small islands near Simalur bearing the same name ; 

 of these three is meant the one lying southwards of Simalur; 

 on 2 7' N. and 96 40' E. The same small island is menti- 

 oned in the first volume. 



For the Snakes too exist excellent lists of synonyms com- 

 posed by G. A. BOULENGER in the Catalogues of the British 

 Museum; therefore I followed this work for the names, except 

 where some doubt arose or when I was of another opinion. 



The extraordinary circumstances by which nearly the whole 

 world is oppressed, made it difficult for me to finish my task; 

 objections were made to send out rare species for examination, 

 letters did not reach their destination and last but not least 

 the paper question was an urgent one. Still I beg to return 

 my sincere thanks to all who have rendered me their help 

 in different ways. Dr. VAN LlDTH DE JEUDE placed the col- 

 lection of the Leiden Museum at my disposal, which contains 



