338 THE INDO-PACIFIC AND ITS SHORES 



bright orange and black. The most widely distributed species is H. platurus, 

 characterised by its yellow tail, spotted and barred with black. 



According to a letter received by the writer some years ago from a corre- 

 spondent in Samoa, the flesh of certain kinds of sea-snakes is highly relished as 

 food by the native inhabitants of that island. Apparently the poisonous nature 

 of these snakes varies according to the species, for the Samoans consider some of 

 the species poisonous, and refuse to eat their flesh, while others are regarded as 

 good food. It is somewhat difficult to identify these edible species, but two of 

 them appear to be referable to Platurus schistorhyncfms, the range of which 

 extends from the Malay Archipelago to Samoa and the Tonga and Fiji Islands. 

 Despite the poisonous nature of all of them, several kinds of sea-snakes in Japan 

 are stated to be perfectly harmless to man, among these being the species 

 mentioned above, which is said to be frequently handled by the fishermen of the 

 Liu Kiu Islands without fear and without accident. The species of the genus 

 Platurus, it may be added, are less exclusively marine than most of the other 



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■■■ ,....,.,.- .-,; .,"■ .. •■•■•■ ^'^NWgppSpi 



SPOT-TAILED SEA-SNAKE. 



kinds, living near the shore, and occasionally climbing for a short time among the 

 rocks, and sometimes even venturing still farther inland. They are enabled to do 

 this by the relatively large size (as compared with the other members of the 

 group) of the scales on the lower surface of the body, a feature in which they 

 approximate to ordinary land snakes. 



Although fishes form the subject of a later chapter by themselves, 



Mud-Skippers. . ° . J * . /T1 . 



the members of the curious group known as mud-skippers (Perioph- 

 thalmus), on account of their shore-hunting mode of life, may be noticed here. 

 Of these fishes three specific representatives are met with on the shores and 

 estuaries of the tropics. They have remarkably prominent, goggle eyes, set close 

 together, and each provided with a lid. These fishes are further characterised by 

 their strong pectoral fins, which stand out from the body in an unusual manner, 

 and thus enable their owners to walk and leap on dry ground or even to climb 

 roots of trees and the steps of landing-places. At low tide mud-skippers may be 

 seen hopping over the mud-flats on the shore or across small pools in pursuit of 

 insects ; and they are specially common on shores where interlacing masses of 



