90 A NATURALIST IN TASMANIA ch, 



tinguished from the foregoing by the central scale 

 of the head being elongated and narrow, and 

 having its sides concave (Fig. 21, B) ; also by the 

 greater length of the tail behind the vent. Both 

 the Black and the Diamond Snake may attain 

 a very large size, as much as six feet in length,, 

 and as thick round as a man's forearm. 



The third species is the little Whip Snake 

 (Denisonia coronoides), a little thin greyish snake 

 with the scales on the head very similar to those 

 of the Diamond Snake (Fig. 21, C ); this little 

 snake, which is generally found in dry localities 

 away from water, never attains any size, and its 

 bite, although serious, is rarely, if ever, fatal. 



These are the only dangerous reptiles in Tas- 

 mania, though a little lizard (Lygosoma), which, 

 owing to the reduction of its legs, is snake-like in 

 appearance, has earned the altogether unmerited 

 title of the Death Adder, and is held bv almost 

 every one in the bush to be highly venomous ; 

 in fact I was informed on more than one occasion 

 that it meant certain death to touch one. 



Although the snakes in Tasmania are all ex- 

 ceedingly poisonous and abundant, the number 

 of deaths due to snake bite are very rare. This 

 is due to a number of causes ; in the first place 

 the horror in which these reptiles are held leads 

 to a certain amount of caution, and several men 

 who had always lived in the bush told me that 

 the idea of snakes was very seldom from their 

 minds, especially if they were shifting logs, or in 



