264 



** Caudal shield convex, rounded, without any terminal keel; 

 rostral shield compressed, produced, very acute. — ? Rhinophis, 

 Hempr. 



3. Mytilia unimaculata (fig. 4). B.M. 



Uniform grey-brown (in spirits), with pale edges to the scales, 

 those of the under side being the broadest, with a single oblong 

 transverse yellow spot in front of the vent. 



Hab. Ceylon (Thwaites). 



We have two specimens of this species, — one not in a good state, 

 rather discoloured, being uniform red-brown, from the Haslar col- 

 lection, and another, in good state, received from Mr. Thwaites in 

 1856. They both have the same preanal spot and keelless caudal 

 shield. 



The species is most like the Pseudotyphlops oxyrhynchus figured 

 by Schlegel, Abbild. 43. t. 12, which is said to be the Typhlops 

 oxyrhynchus of Schneider, Amph. ii. 341 ; the Rhinophis oxyrhyn- 

 chus, "Hemp. Berl. Mag.," Wagner, Syst. Amp. 195 ; the Rhino- 

 phis punctata, Midler in Tiedem. Zeitsch. Physiol, ii. 248, 273. 

 t. 21. f. 1, 2, 3, skull; t. 22. f. 1, head shield; f. \, d, e,f, caudal 

 disk, which Scbneider says came from Coromandel, and Professor 

 Johann Midler from Guiana : but I think the latter must be a mis- 

 take, as no species of the family bas yet been found on the Western 

 continent. The specimen figured by Schlegel in the Leyden Museum 

 differs from the one here described, chiefly in having no yellow spot 

 in front of the vent, and in being provided with a dark spot in the 

 centre of the scales, forming a central and some lateral lines on the 

 back, and a single line of spots on the underside of the tail and the 

 hinder part of the belly near the vent. I have no specimen which 

 agrees with it in these characters. 



It is doubtful if Schlegel' s figures of this genus differ from Mo- 

 rina ; but Professor John Midler describes the tail as covered at the 

 end with a "hard oval horny shield," and he says Uropeltis has a 

 caudal shield exactly like Rhinophis, and rough with granulations ; 

 he further observes that there is no other difference between the ex- 

 ternal form and the skull of the genera, except in the form of the 

 rostral shield, which in Rhinophis is sharp and keeled and produced. 

 At any rate Rhinophis and Morina were not established on the same 

 kind of characters, and the sharpness or bluntness of the rostral 

 shield differs in the species of both genera ; and though the name 

 and character is applicable to this kind, the nose of the other 

 species of the genera more resembles that of genera Siloboura, Uro- 

 peltis, and Maudia. 



*** Caudal shield small, with a terminal transverse dentated keel; 

 rostral shield square, rather acute. — Crealia. 



4. Mytilia melanogaster (fig. 5). 



Above brown (in spirits), with indistinct pale lines between the 

 series of scales, formed by very small pale dots on the outer side6 of 



