ENHYDRINA BENGALENSIS. 



Russell's description of this species of Enhydrina is given below : — 

 " Head rather short, of moderate width ; neck and body moderately 

 elongate. Rostral shield very small, lobuliform, its projecting point 

 fitting into a corresponding cavity of the lower jaw ; the fourth upper 

 labial shield below the eye ; mental shield very narrow and long, 

 situated in a groove ; anterior lower labials much elongate ; throat 

 covered with scales, without shields. One post-ocular, sometimes 

 divided into two. Neck surrounded by forty-eight series of scales. 

 Scales scarcely imbricate, hexagonal, each provided with a short keel ; 

 ventral shields not, or but little, different from the scales of the adjoining 

 series ; they are 284-314 in number. Terminal scale of the tail rather 

 large. The young has broad black rhombic bands across the back, 

 which become fainter with age, and finally disappear entirely." 



" The fang of Enhydrina," says Sir Joseph Fayrer, " is short, but 

 well marked ; the groove is open part of its length, but not throughout. 

 The body is somewhat compressed, the belly carinate ; the tail flat 

 and compressed, almost like a fish's fin ; the nostrils vertical ; the 

 eyes small ***. One (Enhydrina) was made to close its jaws on 

 a fowl, and it killed it in seven minutes. Some hours after its 

 death its jaws were forcibly closed on a fowl's thigh, and the bird died 

 in four hours. The poison is evidently very virulent." According to 

 Fayrer it measures from thirty-six to forty-eight inches. It is common 

 in the tidal waters of the Sunderbunds and in the Bay of Bengal. 



