MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



169 



Anyone familiar with Zamenis mucosus in India, a very common snake, 

 would mistake the Chinese Z. dhumnades for it, as I did myself. The 

 similarity in the two species in growth, bodily conformation, relative 

 length of tail to body, in every scale peculiarity, as well as in colour and 

 markings is very striking. Only careful attention to lepidosis would 

 show the distinction between the two. 



A reference to Mr. Boulenger's Catalogue (Vol. I, pp. 374 and 379) shows 

 that there is an extremely close agreement in the characters of the genera 

 Zamenis and Zaocys, in fact, the one point of difference one can discover is that 

 the maxillary teeth in the former vary from 12 to 20, whereas in the latter 

 they range from 20 to 33. Now I have six skulls of Zamenis mucosus in my 

 collection and find that the maxillary teeth number from 20 to 24, so that 

 the dentition on Mr. Boulenger's representation accords with that of 

 Zaocys rather than Zamenis. I have skulls also of Zaocys dhumnades and Z. 

 nigromaryinatus which when compared critically with those of Zamenis 

 mucosus reveal no differences that justify their being referred to different 

 genera. The dentition of the three species is as follows: — 



I think hardly any herpetologist will disagree with my opinion on the 

 fact herein specified, that Zamenis mxLcosus should, in future, be known as 

 Zaocys mucosus. 



The change of an old established name for a common species with which 

 we have grown familiar, is regrettable from every point of view. The 

 fault lies with our systematists however, who group together species whose 

 position is dubious, without even placing a query after the generic name. 

 if skull characters are to be made the basis of classification then no 

 systematist should fix the Genus of any species until he has skulls of 

 every species. 



Where skulls are not available, the generic name should be given 

 dubiously in the text books which are supposed to guide us. 



F. WALL, C.M.Z.S., r.L.s., 

 Major, i.m.s. 



Almoka, 12th February 1914. 



No. XXXIII.— ARE THE SNAKES OLIGODON TRAVANCORICUS 

 (Beddome), and O. VENUSTUS (Jebdon) ENTITLED 

 TO SPECIFIC DISTINCTION ? 

 Whilst examining snakes in the British Museum collection in 1912 I was 

 much struck with the close resemblance between specimens of Beddome's 



