938 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XX. 



Habits. — This krait is in the main of nocturnal habit. When 

 encountered at night it is always on the move. In Assam the 

 planters who owned motor-cars frequently saw it by the brilliant 

 light of their lamps crossing the roads, and on most of the occa- 

 sions when it was killed in or about habitations, it was seen at 

 night. The specimens met with in the day-time were for the most 

 part disturbed from some insecure quarter where they were lying- 

 inactive. It evidently, though is sometimes abroad during day- 

 light in quest of food for the specimen reported above as eating a 

 fish, was seen in the day. Mr. Jacob observed one which he shot 

 in the day-time in conflict with a large tree snake, and Major Evans' 

 record of one eating a chequered kulback was also in the day. 



It is most frequently about in the rains, in fact, no less than 1 3 

 of the 1 7 specimens, Evans and I collected in Rangoon, were killed 

 in June, July and August. At other times of the year, it was 

 decidedly scarce. 



Food. — From my remarks upon its disposition, one might, with 

 reason, expect that it usually preys upon small and defenceless 

 creatures, such as frogs and toads, but this is not so. It shows a 

 very great partiality for an ophidian diet, and in its choice by 

 no means picks out the weaklings, but will attack snakes as large 

 or larger than itself, and overcome such formidable species as the 

 dhaman (Zamenis mucosus) and the Hirnalo-Malayan rat snake 

 (Zamenis horros), as I have seen myself. Mr. Jacob, too, found one 

 in conflict with a large tree snake of a very truculent nature, viz., 

 Dipsadomorphus cynodon ; and Colonel Evans records it having swal- 

 lowed that vicious reptile the chequered keelback (Tropidonotus pisr 

 cator). Blyth says that its usual fare is cobras, and we must, there- 

 fore, assume, that he has observed it swallowing this species. I 

 once found a lizard of the Skink family ( Mabuia multifasciatus ) 

 had been eaten, and once a clutch of snake's eggs, which were 

 probably of the buff-stripped keelback (Tropidonotus stolatus). 

 Three of these eggs were intact, and I could discover no injury 

 done to them, though I examined them closely with a lens. This 

 seems remarkable when one reflects that there are two long rows 

 of teeth in the roof of the mouth, and many opposed to them 

 in the lower jaws. On one occasion in Assam, one was reported to 



