THE COMMON INDIAN SNAKES. 451 



Dorsally the body is greyish or yellowish, and bears a series of 

 large, somewhat roughly quadrate, patches extending from the. 

 neck on to the tail. These patches which are centrally much the 

 same colour as the ground are well defined outwardly, and broad- 

 ly outlined with black or blackish, and it is here that those lovely 

 bluish and amethystine hues are seen in certain lights which 

 show off the snake to such advantage, and which many an artist in 

 the Royal Academy has tried, with varying degrees of success, 

 to depict. Outside this median series of marks is another small 

 series of a similar character, and outside this again a third some- 

 times, much less regular and smaller and mixed up with a coarse 

 mottling extending into the flanks. The underparts are dirty- 

 whitish, or faintly yellow. Seen in the sun's rays the iridescent 

 effects on the dorsal patches defy alike the author's powers of 

 description and the painter's art of reproduction. Virgil's * des- 

 ci'iption however of the snake that encircled the tomb of 

 Anchises, and which Kennedy has so graphically rendered in 

 English verse as follows, leaves no doubt, but that it is a python 

 that is indicated, and as likely as not our Indian species molurus. 



" Scarce had he said when from the shrined base a slippery snake trailed 

 huge seven coils, in each seven folds ; and circling tranquilly the tomb 

 slid o'er the altar ; dark blue streaks its back lit up, its scales a sheen of 

 spotted gold as (when the sun shines opposite) the bow darts from the 

 clouds a thousand varied hues." 



" Circling trancjuilly " and the comparison of its colours to that 

 of the rainbow are so graphic that one feels Virgil must have seen 

 a python moving with the sun glancing upon its scales. 



Identification. — The Python is a very easy snake to identify. 

 The pits in the first two f upper labials will serve to distinguish it 

 from every other Indian species. Only one other has those 

 pits at all and this is its ally P. reticulatus which has the first three 

 or four shields pitted. In case the head has been too mutilated to 

 be certain of this point, attention should be directed to the costals. 

 There are only three Indian snakes with the rows exceeding 50 in 

 midbody, viz., Eryx johni, P. molurus, and P. reticulatus which are 



* ^Eueid Lib. V line 84, et. sec[. 



t Care must be taken not to count the pits on the foremost shield — the rostral. 



