44 ON THE SNAKES OF SYDNEY, 



oftheoccipitals this streak is bent down on the sides of the face, 

 and behind this dark spot is a white narrow streak and another 

 broad dark band reaching down to the edge of the labial shields ; 

 then follows again a white streak and a second black band, but 

 much smaller than the previous one, and so alternately a broader 

 brownish and a narrow black band to within an inch of the apical 

 half of the tail ; the black bands are occasionally interrupted, 

 leaving a blank on the other side of the body ; including these 

 interrupted streaks, from seventy to eighty may be counted upon 

 body and tail, seventy-five is the usual number. The belly in 

 young and half-grown individuals is covered with yellowish spots, 

 which at a more mature age form into the black blotches men- 

 tioned in the description of the adult. 



The great difference in the coloration of young half-grown 

 and adult individuals has given rise to a variety of names : for 

 some time I tried in vain to reduce them, but at last succeeded 

 by bringing together a complete series of this snake in various 

 stages of growth, from the egg upwards. Dr. Albert Giinther 

 to whom drawings as well as specimens in good preservation 

 were submitted, states in a paper read before the Zoological 

 Society of London, 



" The young specimens, then, found by Mr. Krefft, do not 

 belong to Furina textilis, Dumeril and Bibron, which has three 

 posterior oculars, but to Diemansia annulata, described by myself 

 in ' Colubr. Snakes? p. 213. And the old individual sent by Mr. 

 Krefft is identical with Pseudcelaps su/perciliosus, Fisch. Mr. 

 Jan, of Milan, (who says that he has examined the Snakes of the 

 Hamburg Museum) describes the adult Snake under two names, 

 Pseudcelaps sordellii and Ps. hubinyi, the latter being founded 

 upon an accidental variety, in which some of the head 

 shields are confluent. The synonomy of this species therefore 

 would be : 



Diemansia superciliosa. 



an Adult. 

 1856. Pseudcelaps superciliosus. Fisher in Abhandl. Geb. 



Naturwiss. III., part 107., taf. 2 fig. 3. (head not quite 



correct) . 



