182 Prof. M‘Coy on the Recent Zoology 
they are common. Of these a kind of turtle-soup was made at 
the dinner of the Melbourne Acclimatization Society; but the 
taste for it has not yet been acquired. 
The Crocopri1a do not come down the Australian coast so 
far south as Victoria, the largest of the Sauria being the Hydro- 
saurus varius, called “iguana” by the colonists, of five or six 
feet. Of the skin of this species some slippers and other small 
articles in the Intercolonial Exhibition now open in Melbourne 
are manufactured with much elegance. The natives use it for 
food. The Trachydosaurus rugosus, Cyclodus gigas, Hinnulia 
teniolata, and Grammatophora barbata abound in the warmer 
north part of the colony, but gradually disappear towards the 
south coast. 
Of snakes, the following species occur, and the larger and 
more common are roasted and eaten by the natives :—Morelia 
variegata, or carpet-snake, the only Python and non-venomous 
snake in Victoria, and confined to the northern boundary ; 
Acanthophis antarctica, or “ death-adder,” also confined to the 
northern boundary; Hoplocephalus curtus, or “tiger snake,” 
common about Melbourne, and the cause of most of the acci- 
dents from snake-bites; H. flagellum, or “little whipsnake,” 
H. coronoides, and H. superbus. This latter species, with 
fifteen rows of scales, the two outer rows with red centres, 
is very common about Prahran, near Melbourne, though said 
to occur only in Tasmania; the neck is not dilatable into a 
flat hood, as in the H. curtus. The “ black snake ” (Pseudechis 
porphyraicus) is rather rare; and the P. australis is only found 
with us near our northern boundary. The common “ brown 
snake” may possibly include two species; but I doubt the dis- 
tinctions between Pseudonaja nuchalis and Diemenia superciliaris 
being permanent; at any rate, specimens with the proportions 
of the rostral shield of the latter are common, and several inter- 
mediate proportions varying to that characteristic of the former 
occur. Diemenia reticulata is very common on the Lower Murray 
boundary. 
The Barracuta, with the exception of the common green 
frog (Ranhyla aurea) are rarely seen or heard,—the true tree- 
frogs (Hyla) inhabiting the lofty gum-trees, and the Lymno- 
dynastes tasmanicus, L. dorsalis, and L. affinis burrowing in the 
sand during the day. 
PISCES, 
The species of fish good for the table are very much fewer in 
Victoria than in Europe ; and great interest attaches, therefore, 
with many of the general public, to the endeavours of the 
