1894.] OPniDIA OF TRINIDAD, B. W. 1. 501 



were so small that the snake could not constrict them. He 

 bolted them one after the other, and one of them moving after it 

 had been swallowed, he flew at the spot and buried his teeth in his 

 own side. 



This snake soon learns to know the person who habitually feeds 

 it, and will manifest considerable interest when he approaches the 

 cage, coining up to the glass and crawling out of the box, when 

 opened, on to his hands and arms. It will often take mice and 

 small birds from the fingers when offered to it. Like many 

 poisonous snakes (Crotalus horridus, for instance), E. cenchris knows 

 when an animal is disabled. A rat given to one was constricted. 

 Contrary to the usual habit, the snake let go before all pulsation 

 had ceased. The rat crawled away. The snake seemed surprised 

 at this, but soon recovered its wits, and, taking hold of the rat by 

 the tail, dragged it into the centre of the box and without 

 constricting it a second time (not even attempting to do so), 

 waited until the rat was dead, when it swallowed it in the usual 

 manner. 



A pair under our observation coupled in January. 



We have seen specimens 7 feet in length, but the largest we 

 have had under observation have not exceeded 5. One specimen 

 we had inflated its neck when irritated in the style of Coluher corais 

 and C boddaerti, but not quite so prominently. When the snake 

 has recently changed his skin the dark or reddish-brown closely 

 scaled coat, when seen in sunlight, is glorious, with a lovely 

 iridescent peacock-blue, which earns for the reptile the Creole 

 name of Velvet Mapepire. 



COEALLUS COOEII, var. EtJSCHElTBEIlGII. 



These snakes couple in the months of February, March, and 

 April, when many are found in the localities they frequent in close 

 proximity. They produce some 20 or 30 young ones at a time, 

 generally about August and September, though we have a young 

 one which was given us when very young in May, so perhaps there is 

 not much reliance to be placed in information as to breeding-time '. 

 The young ones are very small and thin, with enormous heads, and 

 probably their first meals consist of small lizards, such as Anolis 

 alligator, very young birds, mice, and rats. The lizards they 

 constrict. They are soon able, however, to catch full-grown mice, 

 and it is really wonderful how the young snakes manage to pass 

 down their excessively slender necks, which are not so thick as a 

 lead-pencil, adult mice. These snakes sometimes lie in water, 

 but very occasionally. The adults attain a length of 7 or 8 

 feet, and are sometimes of a yellowish-brown colour. More often 

 they are of a deep dark brown, and as they lie in the slender twigs 

 at the furthest extemities of the thick branches of the tree 

 partially screened by the leaves are singularly inconspicuous. 



^ Mr. O. Eeilly caught a pair coupling in February, and the young were 

 produced the following August. They have coupled in our cages in February, 

 March, and April. 



Pkoc. Zool. Soc— 1894, No. XXXIII. 33 



