136 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXI. 



The costals reduce to 15 or 13 posteriorly irrespective of sex. In the ' 

 reduction from 19 to 17 the 8th row above the ventrals is absorbed into 

 the 7th usually (more rarely the 9th). From 17 to 15 the 3rd row above 

 the ventrals disappears, being absorbed into the 4th usually (rarely the 

 2nd). These two steps occur quite close together, and may be reversed or 

 mixed. When the rows still further reduce to 13, as is the rule, it is the 

 7th row above the ventrals that is absorbed. The supralabials are usually 

 9, the 4th divided, and its upper part with the 5th and 6th shields touch 

 the eye. Rarely there are 8 in the series, and then the 3rd is divided, and 

 with the 4th and 5th touches the eye. The tongue is pinkish with blackish 

 tips. The eye has a narrow golden pupillary margin, with fine specks of 

 gold interspersed through the iris. The S claspers are beset with manj- 

 falciform tentacles. The anal glands furnish a white secretion. In ladacen- 

 sis the colour is olive-greyish, or olive-greenish, and there are usually 6 rows 

 of quincunciate, small, blackish, round spots, most conspicuous anteriorly. 

 Sometimes these spots are absent. There is usually a small round blackish 

 spot at the side of each ventral especially marked in the anterior ones, 

 but these may be absent. The belly is otherwise a pearly white, with 

 sometimes some pinkish suifusion posteriorly. In variety typica, the 

 vertebral stripe was a bright rosy pink in two specimens, but a brownish-red 

 in the third. There are spots on the ventrals as in the last, and the belly 

 was a pale creamy-yellow, or pale sulphur-yellow. I do not think there 

 were any dorsal quincunciate spots, but I have failed to specially mention 

 their absence in my notes. In both varieties there is a periorbicular buff 

 zone, and the overlapped parts of the scales especially in the forebody are 

 black basally, whitish apically. These hues show up only when the snake 

 under excitement dilates itself, at other times they are quite concealed. 



The species is remarkably slender in habit, wide awake, and active. 



