CLASSIFICATION OF SNAKES 229 



and femora, and the femora may even terminate each 

 in a claw, which may be externally visible on either side 

 of the cloacal opening. The mandible includes a coronoid 

 bone (fig. 97, cor.). Squamosals and transpalatines are 

 present. 



(4) Ilysiidce. This family is composed of about half 

 a dozen species, which are found only in Tropical 

 America, and in the islands and peninsulas of South- 

 eastern Asia. Their characters are those of the Boiidce, 

 except that they do not attain any great size, and that 

 the squamosal and quadrate bones are much reduced, 

 and the ventral shields are quite small. One of the 

 common South American species of this family is coloured 

 in alternate broad rings of black and red, like some of the 

 venomous Colubrine snakes of the genus Elaps of the 

 same region. 



(5) Uropeltidce (Shield-tails and Peg-tails). These small 

 burrowing-snakes, of which about forty species are known, 

 are restricted to the hill-jungles of Ceylon and Southern 

 India. They have a peculiar stumpy or obliquely 

 truncated tail, ending either in a large rough shield, or 

 in a spike or pair of points. The eyes are small, and the 

 ventral shields are only slightly enlarged. 



(6) Xenopeltidce. This family is represented by a single 

 species, which is found only in Southern India, Burma 

 and Indo-China, and the Malay Peninsula and neighbour- 

 ing islands. It closely resembles a land Colubrine snake 

 in all its characters, but the ventral shields, though large, 

 do not extend on to the flanks. There are teeth in the 

 premaxilla. 



(7) Amblycephalidce. This is a small family there are 

 between thirty and forty species of insect-eating snakes, 

 restricted, like the Ilysiidce, to South-eastern Asia and 

 Tropical America. Superficially they much resemble 

 Colubrine snakes, as they have large ventral shields 

 which extend on to the flanks; and some species have 

 a strong superficial resemblance to certain venomous 

 Colubrines ; but they may be at once distinguished by the 



