242 APPENDIX II 



30. Hahjs blomhoffii (Boie). Common near Kiu-kianp^, 



31. Hahjs ambtus, sp. n. 



Tliis new species may be at once reco<?nised by the upper part of the 

 extremity of the .snout being produced into a sliort, flexible, pointed lobe 

 which projects fi-om between the anterior frontal and the rostral shield 

 The anterior frontals are small, longer than broad ; the posterior very 

 large, intermediate in size between the anterior frontals and the occipitals. 

 Eye surrounded by a ring of small orbitals, of which those in front are 

 rather elongate ; that below the eye is likewise long and crescent-shaped, 

 separated by a small postocular from the superciliary shield. Seven 

 upper labials, of which the second forms the anterior wall of the antorbital 

 pit, the third and fourth being the largest. A series of three large temporal 

 shields occupies the lower part of the temple, the space between this 

 series and the occipital being covered by ordinary scales. 



Scales strongly keeled, the keels forming a high sharp ridge on the 

 posterior part of the body. Each scale bears, besides the keel, on its 

 -extremity a pair of very small nodules ; scales in twenty-one rows. Ventral 

 shields 160 ; anal entire ; subcaudals 60, of which the six or twenty 

 anterior may be single. Extreinity of the tail compressed, covered with 

 comparatively large vertical scutes, and terminating in a long and com- 

 pressed spine. 



The colour of the upper parts is brown, each side of the body being 

 ornamented with a series of large dark-coloured triangles, the point of 

 each triangle meeting that of the other side in the median line of the 

 back. Lower parts whitish with a series of large rounded black spots on 

 each side and smaller ones of irregular shape in the middle. The upper 

 part of the head is imiform black ; a sharp line, which runs from the eye 

 along the middle of the temporal scutes to the angle of the mouth, divides 

 the black coloration of the upper parts from the white of the lower. 



This species is very remarkable, not only on account of the rostral 

 lobe, but also for the modification of the scutellation of its compressed 

 tail. Although this modification cannot in any way be taken as an initial 

 step in the development of the rattle of Crotahis, the rattle being a modi- 

 fication of the last dermal scute only into which the vertebral column is 

 not prolonged, yet the tail of this species may exercise in a much smaller 

 degree the same function as in the rattlesnake, and may be an instrument 

 by which vibrations and sound are produced. It is well known also that 

 many innocuous snakes are able to vibrate the extremity of their tail. 

 To .judge from its size and from the development of its poisonous apparatus 

 this snake must be extremely dangerous. 



Three specimens are in the collection, of which the lai'gest is fortj'-six 

 inches long, the tail measuring 6i inches. It has been figm'ed in Ann. 

 Mag. Ned. Hist. 1888, 1. pi. 12. 



