MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 1033 



No. XXVII,— HATCHING OF DHAMAN (ZAMENIS MUCOSUS) 

 EGGS, AND OBSERVATIONS ON THE EGG TOOTH. 



In Fyzabad, on the 8th of August 1906, a native brought me 8 snake's eggs. 

 He told me that he saw a large snake coiled among these eggs, which were 

 deposited among some bricks in a rubbish heap. When the snake escaped he 

 removed 9 eggs in all, one of which he broke. He indicated on a bamboo 

 what he supposed the length of the snake, which was apparently between 5 

 and 7 feet. 



I had at the time some 60 odd snakes in bottles including a young dhaman, 

 which he singled out as the snake most like the one he had encountered. The 

 largest egg was 2| inches in length, and the smallest 2 inches in length, by 

 1 2^ in breadth. I broke one open, and extracted an embryo 7f inches long. 

 It was whitish in colour, and the issues so transparent that the heart and 

 large vessels appeared crimson from their contained blood. The heart could 

 be distinctly seen pulsating, and the blood coursing through the largest 

 blood vessels. The head was curiously beaked, much resembling a partially 

 incubated chick's. In texture the tissues were so gelatinous that the embryo 

 had to be touched with the greatest care to avoid dissolution under my 

 grasp. The scales were visibly formed, but their detail was too indistinct to 

 permit my counting them until I had dipped the specimen into ink when they 

 proved to be in 17 rows anteriorly, in 17 rows in the middle of the body, and 

 14 in the posterior part of the body. This sufficed to identify the species of the 

 mother as a dhaman (Zamenis rnucostis). It could be no other Indian snake. 

 The 7 remaining eggs were placed in cotton wool, in a prune jar in a subdued 

 light to await developments. On the 24th August, anxious to ascertain the 

 progress of development, I broke another egg, and found the embryo a shade 

 less than 12^ inches in length. The rate of growth was therefore 4J inches 

 in 16 days if one allows this specimen a length equal to that of the first at 

 the time of extraction. This second embryo was also quite colourless. The 

 eye was very large, exactly equalling its distance to the end of the snout, its 

 pupil discernible and the iris dull greenish. The alveolar ridges were well 

 formed, but I could not feel any teeth, nor see any under a lens, however a 

 row of punctures along the ridges indicated the situations where the teeth 

 were destined to issue. 



I could find at this stage no vestige of the fcetal egg tooth, a structure I 

 had eagerly looked for for years without success. 



This specimen was a male, and I was surprised to find the male organs fully 

 extruded on each side. These were expanded into a terminal flattened, 

 feebly sulcate disc. 



The navel was perforate, involving 4 ventrals, 2 completely, and half 

 another in front, and behind, and 25 complete ventrals intervened between it 

 and the anal shield. 



As I was about to leave for England I took the 6 remaining eggs on board. 

 23 



