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Isotely^) and Coralsnakes. 

 By 



Hans Gadow, F. R. S.. Cambridge. 



With Plate 1 and 18 fignres in the text. 



In every part of tropical Mexico are known "Coralillas", little 

 corals, i. e. Coralsnakes, and thus the belief has g-rown that Elaps 

 fuMiis is a very common species, and furtlier, that every Coralilla, 

 every beautiful snake with red, black and yellow or white bands, 

 is poisonous, A practica! proof indeed of the efi'ectiveness of warning 

 colours — so far as the White man is concerned. The Indians 

 discriminate between them to a certain extent. In some parts of 

 the country the Coralillas are considered quite harmless, in others 

 as deadly, or again it is held that you can never teil except in so 

 far as that those, which live in the bush, are bad, whilst those which 

 establish themselves in the huts, do no härm whatever, "because they 

 are already tame", and therefore do not bite the "Cristiano", i, e. Man. 



In certain villages of the hotlands of Guerrero, for instance at 

 San Luis Allende, such a snake is supposed to live beneath the 

 watertub of every house. The explanation of the puzzling information 

 about the Coralsnakes is twofold. First, the uncertain behaviour 

 of Elaps. A specimen may be caught and handled with impunity; 

 it hardly struggles, does neither hiss nor bite; but the same snake 



1) Isotely, the attaining of the same end through similar successive 

 stages. Isotely is ectopic if the respective cases occur in different 

 parts of the world ; entopic if they occur at tbe same place, and these 

 may eventually lead to mimicry. 



Zool. Jahrb. XXXI. Abt. f. Syst. 1 



