127 



THE FLORA AND FAUNA OF NUYTS ARCHIPELAGO AND THE 

 INVESTIGATOR GROUP. 



No. 10.— THE SNAKES OF FRANCIS ISLAND. TOGETHER WITH A NOTE 

 ON THE NAME OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL GROUP. 



By Edgar R. Waite, F.L.S., C.M.Z.S.. Director S.A. Museum. 

 (Contribution from the South AustraHan Museum.) 



[Read June 14, 1923.] 



In recent pubhcations. both of writings and maps, the group of islands 

 referred to is entitled Nuyt's Archipelago, but the name of the illustrious Dutch- 

 man commemorated was not Nuyt, but Nuyts, or, in Dutch, Nuijts. It would 

 seem, therefore, that the group of islands should be designated Nuyts 

 Archipelago. 



In a publication by Prof. I. E. Heeres '^' the following passages occur 

 (p. 51):— 



XVIII (1627). 



DISCOVERY OF THE SOUTH-WEST COAST OF AUSTRALIA 



BY THE SHIP HET GULDEN ZEEPAARD, COMMANDED 



BY PIETER NUIjTS, 



MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL OF INDIA, AND BY THE 



SKIPPER FRANCOIS THIJSSEN OR THIJSZOON. 



A. 



Dailv Register of what happened here at Batavia from the first 



of January, 162 J. 



. . . . On the 10th (of April) there arrived here from the 



Netherlands the ship t'Gulden Seepaart fitted out by the Zealand 



Chamber, having on l^oard the Honble Pieter Nuyts, extraordinary 



Councillor of India, having sailed from there on the 22nd of May, 



1626 .... 



B. 

 Hessel Gerritsa-Huydccoper Chart (No. 5. — VII D). 

 This chart has 't land van Pieter Nuijts (discovered January 26, 

 1627) and the islands of Sint Francois and Sint Pieter. 



The only snake that appears to have been definitely identified from the 

 group of islands forming the Nuyts Archipelago is the common carpet snake 

 ^(Python (spilotes) z'ariegata. Gray), and an example of this species was obtained 

 on St. Francis Island by Sir Joseph Verco, who at one period devoted consider- 

 able time to investigating the fauna of the waters of our various islands, in 

 pursuance of his special study, the MoUusca. 



Flinders met with a snake on St. Francis, recording its occurrence as "a 

 yellow snake, which was the second killed on this island." •'' 



Quite recently Mr. Francis Arnold, who resides on the island, told my 

 colleague. Professor Wood Jones, that he knows of five kinds of snakes there, 

 which he named as follows : — Carpet snake, black snake, brown snake, jumping 



Ci) Heeres, 'The part borne by the Dutch in the discovery of Australia, 1606-1765," Leiden 

 and London, 1899. 



(•2) Matthew Flinders, Vov. Terra Austr., i., 1814, p. 109. 



