422 SNAKES OF CEYLON. 



Nicobars have the posterior part of the dorsal stripe festooned 

 instead of straight, and thus constitute a form transitional 

 between varieties A and B. 



Variety (B) (=the ornatus of Gray, the rrmculatus of Jan, 

 and varieties A and B of Boulenger's Catalogue) : In this 

 the dorsal stripe is broken up into cross-bars in the whole body 

 length or for a variable extent posteriorly, and a series of 

 costal spots alternates with the bars. It is a rare form 

 known from Borneo, but dubiously from our coasts. 



Variety (C) subobscurus (Wall) (=variety D of Boulenger's 

 Catalogue) : Like Variety A, but the yellow is replaced by 

 a khaki hue. In some the hues are separated by a yellow 

 line. I saw three such with a yellow line from Ceylon in the 

 Colombo Museum, and there is one from Bombay in the 

 British Museum. One without the yellow line in the Indian 

 Museum is from Travancore, and two in the Colombo Museum 

 are from Ceylon. Three of the five in the Colombo Museum 

 have the dorsal stripe festooned posteriorly. 



Variety (D) (=variety G of Boulenger's Catalogue) : The 

 name pallidus would suit this form. It differs only from 

 variety A, in that the sides and belly are whitish or grayish, 

 and the dorsal stripe and caudal marks are much paler than 

 normal, indeed, these may be almost obsolescent. Such a 

 specimen from Travancore is in the British Museum. Two 

 specimens I saw in the Colombo Museum, probably from 

 Ceylon, another in the Indian Museum from the Persian Gulf, 

 and a third in the Bombay Natural History Society's collection 

 from Bombay, all of which I took at first to be very faded 

 specimens, belong to this variety. The last is so pale and 

 the vertebral stripe so extremely indistinct that I regarded it 

 dubiously as an albino. Father Dreckman in 1913 wrote to 

 me of a somewhat similar specimen he had recently acquired 

 near Bandora on the Bombay Coast. This was a light gray 

 colour, with a somewhat darker vertebral stripe. The tail 

 had the usual characteristic black marks. 



Habits. — Nothing special known. 



Food. — I am not aware of any fish preyed upon having 

 been identified. 



