366 SNAKES OF CEYLON. 



India. I saw four good examples in the Colombo Museum, 

 of Ceylon origin. It is apparently a rare snake on the Burmese 

 Coast. Evans and I failed to get a specimen, and there was 

 no example in the Indian Museum from this locality when 

 I examined the collection in 1914. There appears to be no 

 record from the An damans. One specimen in the British 

 Museum is from Mergui. 



I have dealt herein with the species as I know it from 

 Indian Coasts exclusively ; purposely avoiding all reference 

 to several species that have been described by various authors 

 from waters east of Tenasserim, which I showed in my Mono- 

 graph were not, in my opinion, entitled to rank as species 

 distinct from cyanocincta. 



LlOSELASMA LAPEMIDOIDES (Gray). 



This species recognized as such by Boulenger, I cannot 

 dissociate from cyanocincta (Daudin). The only important 

 difference I can discover in Boulenger's descriptions of the 

 two is that the scales in cyanocincta are imbricate posteriorly, 

 whilst those in lapemidoides are juxtaposed. In at least one 

 other hydrophid, viz., fasciata (Schneider), Boulenger him- 

 self recognizes that the scales posteriorly are imbricate, sub- 

 imbricate, or juxtaposed. I have examined all the specimens 

 labelled cyanocincta and lapemidoides in the British Museum 

 side by side, and cannot separate them. I have entered in 

 my notebook, against Lort Phillips's specimen in the British 

 Museum labelled cyanocincta, the remark " scales almost 

 juxtaposed. " I append, however, Boulenger's own des- 

 cription of lapemidoides. 



" Head rather small ; body elongate, slender anteriorly, 

 diameter of the neck two -fifths to one -third the greatest depth. 

 Rostral slightly broader than deep ; nasals shorter than the 

 frontal, more than twice as long as the suture between the 

 prefrontals ; frontal much longer than broad, as long as or 

 a little shorter than its distance from the end of the snout, 

 shorter than the parietals ; one prae- and two or three post- 

 oculars ; eight upper labials, second largest, third and fourth 



