326 GEOGRAPHICAL AND GEOLOGICAL DISTRIBUTION. 



mainland and over the greater part of the continent of Africa, 

 although by some naturalists the Ethiopian species are placed in a 

 distinct genus, Hortulia. The netted python (P. reticulatus) in- 

 habits nearly all the islands of the Malay Archipelago, besides 

 portions of the mainland (Farther India), where it shares in part 

 the habitat of the common Indian species, P. molurus. Among 

 the African species are the royal python of the western forests 

 (P. regia), Seba's python, or the fetich-snake (P. Sebae), whose 

 distribution is much more general, and the Natal rock-snake (P. 

 [Hortuiia] Natalensis). The Australian Pythonida? are included in 

 the genera Morelia, Aspidiotes, Liasis (islands of the Arafura Sea), 

 and Nardoa, to the first of which belong the diamond-snake (M. 

 spilotes) and the carpet-snake (M. variegata) of the colonists. In 

 the New World the pythons are replaced by the boas and anacon- 

 das, which by many naturalists have been constituted into a distinct 

 family, Boidtc, and whose habitat is principally the warmer parts 

 of the South American continent. Boa constrictor, whose home is 

 more properly the equatorial forest region, is represented by several 

 closely allied forms in Central America and Mexico, as B. isthmica, 

 B. imperator, and B. Mexicana, which are by some authorities con- 

 sidered to be mere varieties of the common southern constrictor, 

 and by others as distinct species. A fourth species, the yellow 

 boa (Chilabothrus inornatus), whose home is the West Indies, is 

 doubtfully said to inhabit Central America and Mexico as well.* 

 The anaconda (Eunectes murinus) is found in the tropical waters. 



The most remarkable instance of a localised family of any ex- 

 tent is presented by the earth-snakes, or rough-tailed burrowing- 

 snakes, as they are sometimes called, the Uropeltidee, whose thirty- 

 five or more species are confined almost entirely to Ceylon and the 

 southern part of the Indian Peninsula, or to the tract constituting 

 the Cingalese sub-region of the Oriental realm. Their headquarters 

 on the peninsula are the western mountain-ranges between Canara 

 and Cape Comorin, only one species, according to Beddome, 120 be- 

 ing found in the mountains of the east coast, and but three on the 

 west, whose range extends northward beyond Kudra Mukh in South 

 Canara. Several species of Silybura ascend the Neilgherries to an 



* The naturalists of the United States Fish Commission steamer " Alba- 

 tross" found a species of boaeform serpent on the island of New Providence, 

 Bahamas ("Science," June, 1886). 



