62 REPTILIA. 



Xenopeltis, Reinw. 



Large triangular and imbricated plates behind the eyes, becoming 

 confounded with the succeeding ones, which merely decrease in 



size.(l) 



Heterodon, Beauv. 



The usual plates of a Coluber, but the end of the muzzle is one 

 single piece, short, and resembling in form a slightly elevated trie- 

 dralpy ramid, one ridge being above; from which circumstance they 

 have been called Hog-noses. (2) 



HuRRiA, Daud. 



Small Colubers of India, in which the plates on the base of the 

 tail are always simple, and those on the point double; these anoma- 

 lies, however, merit but little attention. (3) 



DiPSAs, Laurent. — Buxgarus, Oppel. 



The body compressed, much narrower than the head; scales of 

 the spinal range larger than the others, a circumstance which we 

 shall find again in Bongarus. Such is the 



I), indica. Nob.; Coliib. bucephalus, Sh.; Seb. I,xliii.(4) Black, 

 ringed with white. 



group belong the Col. cerberus, Daud., Russel, pi. xvii; — Homolopsis oltusatus, 

 Reinw. and the neighbouring species. 



(1) Xenopeltis concolor, Reinw. 



(2) The HeUrodon noirdtre, Beauv., heterodon, Daud., and the liHeredon iachett 

 {Cenchris mokeson, Daud. ) belong to this genus; but Beauvois has established it on a 

 character which is found in a great many Colubers, viz. that of the posterior max- 

 illary teeth being the largest; and Daudin appears to have known his Mokeson by a 

 drawing only, we mean the Hog-nose of Catesby, II, pi. Ivi, which Daud. himself has 

 cited. A part of its tail-plates is sometimes entire; but at the base, and not near 

 the point, as Daud. describes it Linnaeus had correctly indicated this Serpent 

 in his tenth edition, under the name of Coluber constrictor.- why he changed it in the 

 twelfth to Boa contortrix, is not known. [N.B. The author in this note seems to 

 have confounded three species of Serpents which are indubitably distinct — the 

 Heterodon, the Trigonocephalus tisiphone or Mockason Snake, and the Coluber con- 

 strictor or Black Snake. The Heterodon is a harmless animal, and has the plates 

 on the top of the head arranged 3, 2, 3, 2. Jm. Ed.'\ 



(3) Hurriak, a barbarous name, taken from that which designates the species, 

 Russ., XL, copied Daud. V, xlvi, 2. Another, Merr. II, iv. 



(4) Dipsas, the Greek name of a Serpent whose bite was thought to cause a 

 fatal thirst, from ^i-^a, thirst. The fig. of Conrad Gesner, at the word Dipsas, is 

 precisely of this subgenus. The Dip. indica is altogether different from the 



