222 SNAKES OF CEYLON. 



and nearly one-third the total length of the snake. Eye 

 large, with an arc of golden-brown demarcating the pupil, 

 which is round in shape. 



Identification. — The costals are in 15 rows and reduce to 

 11 or 9 in the posterior part of the body. The ventrals and 

 subcaudals are sharply keeled, and there is one loreal. These 

 combined characters will differentiate this from other Ceylon 

 snakes. 



Colouration. — Dorsally the snake is a beautiful bronze, 

 each scale more or less bordered basally and apically with 

 black. In many Ceylon specimens there is a conspicuous 

 yellow vertebral stripe involving the vertebral and half the 

 next row of scales. This begins on the nape, and is seen only 

 in the anterior part of the body. There are usually small, 

 black, oblique, streaks anteriorly, and a black line demarcating 

 the dorsal bronze from the creamy ventral colouration. The 

 head is bronze above, and the upper lip is yellow or buff, with 

 the posterior edges of the 1st to 4th or 2nd to 4th labials 

 black. There is a narrow, short, and rather obscure black 

 post ocular streak also. The belly is uniform creamy -buff, 

 greyish, or greenish, and the ventral hue is continued on the 

 side of the body to the last costal and half the row above it. 

 The over -lapped portions of the dorsal scales are a bright 

 sky-blue, but this is not evident until the snake, under excite 

 ment, expands itself. When seen in such circumstances, it 

 is a very strikingly beautiful reptile. 



I have examined a specimen without any trace of the 

 light vertebral stripe, no biack stripes anteriorly, and no 

 postocular streak. The belly was deep plumbeous with some 

 yellowish mottling on each ventral shield subterminally and 

 along the keels, and a light line below the dorsal bronze 

 posteriorly. 



Habits. — (a) Haunts : Seba's bronze-back, like all its allies, 

 lives almost entirely in bushes and trees. I became most 

 familiar with it in Trichinopoly in my early Indian days, 

 when I spent a good deal of my leisure time birds nesting. 

 During my daily excursions I frequently came across it, and 

 have indeed met as many as three or four in a single outing. 

 I frequently discovered it lying on a branch when peering 



