850 MR. NELSON ANNANDALE ON THE [Dec. 4, 



snake, like the " Ular katam tebu" (Dipsadomo>phus dendrophilus) 1 

 gliding among mangrove-roots beneath the moonlight, or a tiger 

 resting at midday in the Lalang grass, is well concealed by its 

 colour gradations and its black and yellow stripes, and has no 

 need of an elaborately foliated tail like that of a heraldic lion ; 

 such a tail might be of very great advantage to a small Arthropod. 

 Repeated observations, more especially in the small caves of the 

 Koh Sih Hah, or Five Isles of the Tale Sap, have convinced me 

 that the extreme elongation of the spinnerets in the Araneid family 

 of Hersilidse — the "laba-laba berekor" or tailed spiders of the 

 Malays — aids greatly in effecting their concealment on the grey 

 stones and tree-trunks which they frequent, by breaking the 

 otherwise smooth and rounded outline of the abdomen, as the 

 long legs break the outline of the cephalothorax. In short 

 irregularity of outline bears much the same part in hiding an 

 animal as does irregularity of colour such as is exemplified by the 

 black bars on the otherwise pale and inconspicuous tints of the 

 striped Mantis. 



But irregular protective colour is by no means confiued to 

 definite bars and stripes, which might be said more exactly to 

 represent definite shadows or spaces ; it possesses even more 

 frequently a scattered or speckled arrangement. In fact, it is very 

 often the case that the actual colours present are not of such great 

 importance as the manner in which they are arranged and their 

 multiplicity in a given space. It is well known that even in the 

 ordered light and surroundings of a picture gallery, if sufficient 

 brilliant colours are crowded into a sufficiently small space they' 

 " kill " one another and are no longer brilliant. This is doubly 

 true in the deep gloom of the jungle, where any colour has the 

 greatest difficulty in asserting itself, and where so many hues that 

 are in themselves brilliant have to contend with one another. On 

 the jungle floor almost all colours are present in small quantities ; 

 there are patches of deep blue where the sky is reflected through 

 a crevice in the upper foliage upon rain-water held in the hollow 

 of a dead leaf ; among the dead leaves themselves there is every 

 shade of brown and yellow, and scattered black and white in plenty : 

 patches of scarlet caused by fungi on rotten wood are sometimes 

 frequent ; there is the brown-pink of the seedlings struggling 

 towards the light ; and the dull green of tree-stems and creepers, 

 and of the ferns and the few phanerogams which are adapted to 

 exist down below. Bright green alone is absent, except in some 



1 Katam tebu are little round pieces of sugar-cane from which the outer skin 

 has been removed. They are sold in the markets on bamboo skewers. The 

 term " Ular Katam Tebu" in the Siamese States at any rate, is generic, and is 

 applied to all snakes, whether marine or terrestrial, which are conspicuously 

 ringed and which are too big to come under the category of" VlarKapak " or Axe- 

 snakes ; the dark skin of the reptile being taken to represent the spaces between 

 the katam on the skewer, and the lighter riugs the febu or sugar-cane itself. 

 Dip&adomorphus is by far the commonest of such snakes, and therefore the 

 species with which the name is most generally associated. In other parts of the 

 Peninsula it is probable that the "Ular Katam Tebu" is Bunqarus Jhsciatus. 



