SNAKES OF CEYLON 331 



Dr. Gunther first recognized it as a distinct species in 1864, 

 and christened it. 



General Characters. — -A fine snake of large proportions 

 growing to 6 feet. Head small, narrow, not depressed. 

 Snout long, strongly declivous, bent down anteriorly, sub- 

 conical. Eye very small. Commissure of the mouth shaped 

 like an italic /. Neck not constricted. Body very thin and 

 cylindrical for about two -fifths of its length anteriorly, 

 becoming heavy and much compressed posteriorly ; and three 

 times the anterior depth, or even four times in heavily gravid 

 females. 



Identification. — Easily distinguished by the figure-of-8 

 tubercles on the scales, 21 to 25 costal rows two heads-lengths 

 behind the head, and ventrals ranging from 377 to 474. A 

 very distinctive feature, only seen in one other seasnake, viz., 

 stokesi, is that the prefrontal touches the 3rd supralabial. 



Colouration. — Seaweed-green dorsally, merging to yellow 

 ventrally. Encircled by 49 to 61 black rings on the body 

 that dilate vertebrally. The anterior rings are extensively 

 confluent, both vertebrally and ventrally, leaving oval yellow 

 spots laterally. The posterior rings are usually incomplete 

 ventrally. In the young the rings are well defined, but as age 

 advances the definition becomes increasingly less. The head 

 is uniformly black in the young, but fades to a dull dirty 

 greenish with age. 



Habits. — A large male brought to me was extremely active 

 and muscular. It lay on its side, but in spite of vigorous 

 action could not progress at all on land. 



Food. — Nothing is known of any special fish selected. 



Breeding. — (a) The Sexes : Nearly all my specimens have 

 been males, and much the largest examples I have seen were 

 males. In dissecting out the claspers of a large male, I noticed 

 that the clasper tube is not bifid. As some of the seasnakes 

 I have examined have exhibited bifid claspers, this is an 

 observation of special interest. The tubercles are specially 

 prominent in large males. 



48 6(6)20 



