SNAKES OF CEYLON. Ill 



December 22, 1896, and January 25, 1 897. Another exfoliated 

 on December 22, 1896, and January 25, September 3, December 

 14, 1896, and on January 18 and February 27, 1897. This 

 was the same specimen that laid 14 eggs between August 17 

 and September 18. In another specimen ecdysis occurred on 

 March 17, September 17, December 26, 1896, and March 20, 

 1897. It is very difficult to explain why in one instance four 

 months elapsed and in another six months during the same 

 period of the year in which a third specimen desquamated 

 from every three to five weeks. All the specimens, judging 

 from the consumption of frogs, which I have quoted under 

 food, appeared to have been in vigorous health, all the records 

 were made in the same year, and we may assume that all the 

 specimens were caged under similar conditions. It seems 

 unlikely, too, that when special attention was being given to 

 this function, any of the occasions should have been over- 

 looked. 



Food. — Its diet is almost entirely batrachian in character, 

 and whilst some show a decided partiality towards frogs, 

 others find toads more attractive. In India it is usually the 

 frogs Rana cyanophlyctis or the young of R. tigrina that form 

 its principal sustenance, these being, perhaps, the commonest 

 frogs to be met with. For the same reason young toads of 

 the species Bufo melanostictus are most frequently devoured. 

 I have known R. breviceps and Microhyla ornata taken in 

 Fyzabad, and Oxyglossus Ixvis and a species of Rhacophorus, 

 probably leucomystax, in Burma, On several occasions I 

 have found toads ingested, once a young Bufo andersoni in 

 Fyzabad having proved the victim. I once found a gecko in a 

 young one in Assam, but have never heard of a lizard being 

 taken, except on this occasion, and never a mammal. Usually 

 a single frog or toad satisfies its appetite, but I have more than 

 once found as many as three in the stomach. 



Colonel G. H. Evans, whose attention was once arrested by 

 pitiful wails, found on investigation a frog in the jaws of a 

 stolata. It had been seized " a posteriori," and the snake 

 when discovered made tracks without releasing its captive, 

 and succeeded in reaching a crevice in the ground some thirty 

 yards away, down which it managed to insinuate itself by 



