SNAKES OF CEYLON. 345 



History. — Described and christened by Schneider in 1799. 



General Characters. — A rather small species, growing to 3 

 feet or slightly over. Head very small, elongate, not depressed. 

 Snout long, strongly declivous, subcorneal terminally. Eye 

 small. Commissure of mouth turned up posteriorly. Neck 

 not constricted. Body cylindrical and slender in about its 

 anterior two -fifths ; compressed and rather heavy in the 

 posterior three-fifths. 



Identification. — Known by the following features : The 

 round eccentric tubercle on the scales, scale rows 25 to 33 

 two heads-lengths behind the head, and 376 to 513 

 ventrals. 



Colouration. — In this it resembles gracilis very closely. 

 Young specimens are olivaceous-green dorsally, this hue 

 merging to pale-grajr or whitish ventrally. The body is 

 surrounded with from 48 to 71 well-defined black bands, which 

 are expanded vertebrally. In the slender forebody the bands 

 are extensively confluent vertebrally and ventrally, leaving 

 oval lateral islets of pale gray. As age advances the 

 definition of these bands reduces more and more and the 

 bands disappear ventrally, leaving in time only a series of 

 dorsal black rhombs. The head is entirely black in the 

 young, but in time, like th6 body bands, its intensity fades 

 considerably. 



Habits. — There is nothing distinctive to remark upon. 



Food. — No special observations have been made on the fish 

 furnishing its diet. 



Breeding. — (a) The Sexes : Males have the tubercles on the 

 keels more pronounced than the females. 



(b) Method of Reproduction : It is known to be viviparous. 



(c) Season : A gravid female preserved in the Bombay 

 Natural History Society's collection has no date of capture 

 recorded, nor is there a date available for Gunther's type of 

 orookii. Two were procured for me at Madras, one between 



