102 SNAKES OF CEYLON. 



(b) Local : Essentially a snake of the plains. It ascends 

 into hills and flourishes at a considerable altitude. I have 

 had it in the Western Himalayas (Bhim Tal) at 4,500 feet, 

 and in the Nilgiris up to 6,300 feet. It is an extremely 

 common snake in India and Ceylon. 



Genus AMPHIESMA.* 

 (Greek " amphiesma " a garment.) 



General Characters. — " Maxillary teeth not more than 30, 

 last two or three abruptly enlarged " (Boulenger). 



Lepidosis. — I notice that the scales are apically emarginate 

 in ten Asiatic species familiar to me, viz., platyceps, himalaya- 

 na, ceylonensis, beddomei, stolata,, nigrocincta, subminiata, 

 chrysarga, monticola, and tigrina. In all these species the 

 costals are longer than broad, rectiform, and strongly keeled. 

 The vertebral row is not enlarged, the breadth of its scales is 

 half or less than half their length, and half or less than half 

 the breadth of the ultimate row. The ultimate row is enlarged, 

 and the breadth of its scales is subequal to their length. The 

 rows in all are 19 two heads-lengths behind the head, 19 in 

 midbody, and reduce after this to 17 by an absorption of the 

 fourth row above the ventrals. 



Dentition. — I have skulls of all the ten species just alluded 

 to, which agree in the following characters. The maxillary 

 teeth have a short gap in the series posteriorly (diacranterian). 

 The prsecranterian teeth are isodont and number from 

 15 to 35. Cranterian 2, much enlarged, ungrooved, and not 

 obliquely-set teeth, two or three times the length of the last 

 prsenodal tooth. 



Distribution. — Of the twenty-five species referred to by 

 Boulenger, four are Madagascarian, and twenty-one Asian. 

 Two of these, viz., ceylonensis and stolata, occur in Ceylon. f 



* On the maxillary dentition alone Amphiesma has, in my opinion, 

 as good claims to be considered a genus apart from Tropidonotus, as 

 Macropisthodon, Pseudoxenodon, Helicops, and Xenochrophis, all 

 recognized as distinct genera by Boulenger. 



f Abercromby (Snakes of Ceylon, pp. 48 and 63) alludes to Tropi- 

 donotus subminiatus as occurring in Ceylon. This is a mistake, as 

 subminiatus occurs in the Eastern Himalayas, the Hills of Assam, 

 Burma, Indo-China to Southern China, and the Malay Archipelago 

 as far east as Celebes. I cannot suggest what snake he refers to under 

 this title. 



