22 REPTILE GALLERY. 



feed chiefly on tree-lizards and birds, and are found in all the 

 tropical regions. 



The Freshwater Snakes (Homalopsince) are thoroughly aquatic, 

 several of them even entering the sea. In some points of their 

 organization they approach the truly marine Hydrophiince. They 

 feed on fish, and belong chiefly to the Indian region. 



The Acrochordince are distinguished by their small, wart-like, 

 not imbricate, tubercular or spiny scales. Acrochordus javanicus, 

 from Java, Borneo, and the Malayan peninsula, grows to a length 

 of 8 feet. 



The Elapina are poisonous Snakes, with the physiognomy of 

 the harmless Colubrine Snakes : they occur in all the tropical 

 regions, and are most abundant in species in Australia, where they 

 form almost the entire Snake-fauna. The Indian Cobra (Naja 

 tripudians) and the African Cobra (Naja haje) are two of the 

 best known and most dreaded Ophidians. They possess the re- 

 markable faculty of expanding their neck when irritated, by raising 

 the elongated ribs of this region, and thus stretching the skin 

 outwards on each side ; the dilatable portion is frequently orna- 

 mented on the back by a figure resembling a pair of spectacles. 

 The Hamadryad, Ophiophagus elaps, or Naja bungarus, is allied 

 to the Cobra, but attains to a much larger size, arid is one of the 

 most dangerous venomous Snakes, as it is well known to frequently 

 attack people without provocation. It feeds on other Snakes, and 

 occurs in many parts of the Indian continent and archipelago. A 

 specimen, 13 feet long, is exhibited in a spirit-tank opposite the 

 wall-case. The true Elaps, or Coral-Snakes, are small, brilliantly- 

 coloured Snakes, and their very small mouth renders them much 

 less dangerous to man. 



The Sea-Snakes, Hydrophiina, are inhabitants of the tropical 

 parts of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and most abundant in the 

 East-Indian archipelago and in the seas between Southern China 

 and North Australia. They pass their whole life in the sea. Their 

 tail, which is compressed and paddle-shaped, answers all the pur- 

 poses of the same organ in a fish, and their motions in the water 

 are almost as rapid as they are uncertain and awkward on land. 

 These Snakes are highly poisonous; their dentition resembling 



