1899.] OS REPTILES AND BATRACHIATTS FROM FOKIEN. 159 



coral conglomerate rocks running out to form the shore-platform, 

 covered with mud and weed, about half a mile in extent, on it a 

 few stunted Goniastrseas, Mussas, Porites, and Madrepores, in pools. 

 Here, too, were found numbers of black Holothurians, many Tri- 

 dacnas, cones, volutes, large Aplysias, with small black Nemertiues, 

 Squillas, &c. This reef was much lower at the south side in a 

 little bay where the water poured down in a series of rapids into 

 the deep water, which here came close up to the reef; near to these 

 rapids, and at the time exposed to the air and sun, I saw alive 

 (1) great beds of Goniastrseas of t'wo kinds, one in small lobular 

 masses, the other in large domes, the polyps of both being emerald- 

 green ; (2) very large branches of j\hissa recta '?, one specimen being 

 5 feet by 4 across ; (3) Cceloria sp. ; (4) Prionastrcea sp., polyps also 

 bright green ; (5) Symph>/llia sp., in domes ; (6) Porites spp. ; (7) 

 Meandrina sp. ; (8) Tubipora \evy plentiful ; and (9) a few Fungias. 

 On the margin and not exposed were great quantities of Madrcpora 

 cytherea, M. speciosa, and other pedunculate and dendroidal forms, 

 Millepora alcicornis, M. verrucosa, HeUopora ccerulea, Gala.vea spp. in 

 large hemispherical masses, Seriutopora in very delicate but big 

 bunches, Merul'ma sp., showing both delicate fan-like expansions 

 and thick ramose prolongations, Echinopora rosularia, Porites spp., 

 and Pocdlopora spp. 



3. On a Collection of Reptiles and Batracliians made by 

 Mr. J. D. La Touche in N.W. Fokien, China. By G. A. 



BOULENGER^ F.R.S. 



[Received February 1st, 1899.] 

 (Plates XVI.-XIX.) 



An important collection of Eeptiles and Batrachians was formed 

 by Mr. J. D. La Touche during his stay, in the spring of 1896 and 

 again in 1898, at Kuatun, a village about 270 miles from Poo- 

 chow, in the mountains at the North-west of the Province of 

 Pokien, at an altitude of 3000 to 4000 feet or more, and I have 

 been entrusted by him with its description. Accounts of the 

 Birds have been published by the collector and Mr. Ogilvie Grant 

 and by the Eev. H. H. Slater in the ' Ibis " ; of the Mammals by 

 Mr. Oldfield Thomas in these ' Proceedings ' -. 



The interest of this collection resides not only in the number 

 (8) of new species it reveals, and in the discovery of a Snake 

 entitled to be made the type of a new genus, but also in the 

 further demonstration of the close affinity which the fauna of the 

 hills of the interior of China bears to that of the Himalayan- 

 Burmese mountains — a fact which I have already had frequent 

 opportunities of emphasizing by uniting forms described from 



' Ibis, 1896; p. 489, and 1897, p. 169. 

 ^ P. Z. S. 1898, p. 769. 



