450 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HLST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXL 



head, and the anus. It is rounded in outline, smooth, and if the 

 snake is in good condition glossy. The sneck is distinct. The 

 head is very distinctly flattened, has a remarkably long snout fully 

 four times the length of the diameter of the eye in adults, and a 

 faint indication of a Canthus rostraUs. The nostrils are large, 

 open, directed upwards and placed high on the snout. The eye is 

 very small, with an iris finely sprinkled with gold, and a vertical 

 pupil. The rostral shield and the two first supralabials are deeply 

 pitted or furrowed, a peculiarity only seen in this genus among 

 Indian snakes. What these depressions really are, it is difiicult 

 to say, but I have noticed in dissecting out skulls that very highly 

 developed nerves run through foramina in the maxilla corres- 

 ponding with these pits and appear to me to ramify subcuta- 

 neously in them. It would appear from this that they may be 

 sensory organs. Beneath the chin is a longitudinal furrow, the 

 mental groove. The tail is short and prehensile, tapering rapidly 

 and is about one-seventh to one-eighth the total length of the 

 snake. Above the anus on each side is a carved claw-like process, 

 the termination of the rudimentary limb, and which is more highly 

 developed in the male. 



Colour and marMngs. — On the head these vary a good deal 

 with age, and in all individuals vary much according to whether 

 desquamation has been recentl}^ completed, or is impending. The 

 ground colour is greyish, whitish, or yellowish in adults, and of- 

 ten a very pretty shade of pink, in the young especially. There is 

 a dark streak from the nostril to the eye in the young which 

 often is completely obliterated in later life. Behind the eye at ,all 

 ages is a conspicuous, dark, oblique band to the gape, and a more 

 or less conspicuous patch below the eye tending to become obscure 

 with age. On the front part of the lower lip there is often some 

 fine mottling. On the back of the head and the nape is a large 

 lance-shaped mark bisected in the median line, but this often fades 

 so much anteriorly in adults that the similitude to a lance is more 

 or less efiaced. The light bisecting band, together with similar 

 light bands, one of which passes over each eye-brow — especially 

 distinct in the young — are very suggestive of the " dasira " mark 

 already alluded to under vernacular nomenclature. 



