1911.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. CxVv 
Mr. Justice Asutosh Mukhopadhyaya, seconded by Mahamaho- 
padhyaya Haraprasad Sastri; Capt. FE. Owen Thurston, 
F.R.C.S8., I.MS., Calcutta, proposed by Lieut.-Colonel F. P. 
Maynard, I.M.S., seconded by Capt. J. W. D. Megaw, I.M.S. 
Dr. N. Annandale exhibited a very large snake of Genus 
Bingarus forwarded by Major O. A. Smith, and said :— 
‘*T have been asked by our Honorary Secretary to exhibit 
this specimen, which was killed at Hazaribagh in Chota Nag- 
pur. It is an unusually large representative of the Common 
Krait, now measuring 4 feet 44 inches, although I understand 
- it measured 4 feet 63% inches fresh. The record specimen of 
the species measured 4 feet 64 inches (vide Wall, Poisonous 
Terrestrial Snakes of our British Indian Dominions, 2nd Ed., 
p. 24, 1908), whether fresh or in spirit is not stated. I take 
this opportunity to make a few remarks about an allied species, 
B. sindanus, Boulenger, distinguished from the Common Krait 
by its (usually) larger size and by the fact that it has seventeen 
or nineteen rows of lateral and dorsal scales instead of fifteen. 
This species was described in 1898, and was for long believed 
to be peculiar to Sind. Some years later, however, Major 
F. Wall named another so-called species B. walli, although it 
differed little from B. sindanus, of which only a few specimens 
were then known, except in colour and in the number of 
ventral and subcaudal scales, both variable characters. On the 
evidence then available it might have been thought possible 
that B. walli was an eastern race of B. sindanus peculiar to the 
valley of the Ganges, but Major Wall has recently demolished 
this evidence by describing from Baluchistan specimens much 
nearer B. sindanus than the pseudo-species B. walli in scale 
characters (Journ. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., XX, p. 1040, 1911). 
He would still maintain the latter as a distinct species on the 
ground that it differs slightly in colour, form of body and 
maximum size, but these are not characters which can in any 
circumstance be regarded as intrinsically of specific importance 
in the Ophidia. I believe, therefore, that B. walli is merely a 
synonym of B. sindanus, and that the species which must b 
known by the latter name extends all over Northern India 
from Baluchistan to Lower Bengal, perhaps avoiding the 
damper parts of the country.”’ 
The following papers were read :— 
1. The Belkhara Inscription and the Machlishahr Grant.— 
By R. D, BANEBSI. 
This paper will be published in a subsequent number of 
the Journal. © 
2 The Stambhesvari—By B. C. Mazumpar. Communt- 
cated with a note by R. D. 
