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PREFACE. 



In presenting this work to the public the author hopes to 

 achieve more than one object. The volume was at first 

 contemplated as a memorial to his father, the late George 

 Wall. With this idea uppermost in his mind he has 

 endeavoured to fill what he believes to be a long-felt want. 



The book, it is hoped, will appeal specially to the field 

 naturalist and student, and is written in as fight a vein as 

 possible consistent with a scientific work. The remarks on 

 the identification of snakes and the keys and synopses to aid 

 their recognition, he trusts, will be found simple and lucid 

 enough to engage the attention of the naturalist, and enlist 

 more workers in this admittedly difficult field of natural 

 history research. 



By collecting within one cover the scattered writings of 

 previous authors and notes from various sources, it is further 

 hoped that the volume may be found useful to the scientist 

 already versed in ophiology. 



It is not usual in a work of this nature to incorporate 

 matters which are purely medical, but the author departs 

 from this custom in the hope that the medical practitioner 

 may find within these pages useful information concerning 

 ophitoxaemia and its treatment. 



Very little has been written about the snakes of Ceylon, 

 and that little has been mostly descriptive and very incom- 

 plete. Kelaart, for instance, in his " Prodromus Faunae 

 Zeylanica3 " (1852), devotes four pages to the subject, and 

 very briefly refers to four species. Gunther's work on the 

 Reptiles of British India appeared in 1864, and included 

 descriptions of many of the Ceylon snakes, with an occasional 

 remark on habits, food, &c. Ferguson in 1877 published a 

 pamphlet for private circulation, which is little more than a 

 list of the snakes known up to that time to inhabit the Island. 

 Haly published a list on very similar lines in 1886, and another 

 in 1891. Boulenger's "Fauna of British India: Reptilia 



