112 SNAKES OF CEYLON. 



some lateral manoeuvre head last, still retaining hold of the 

 frog. It was dug out, and froggie when released hopped 

 away. Mr. Millard, who has known this species in captivity 

 for over twenty years, tells me that it feeds greedily on frogs, 

 in fact he " cannot remember ever having seen it feed on any- 

 thing else." On the other hand, Mr. E. E. Green, who has a 

 very intimate knowledge of the species in Ceylon, tells me 

 that in captivity " it will look at nothing but the toad Bufo 

 melanostictus," and he relates how on one occasion two 

 ■stolata seized the same toad in his vivarium, each proceeding 

 to swallow from opposite points of seizure, till their noses met, 

 when the larger snake began to engulf the smaller, but at this 

 stage of the proceedings he interfered. In the Madras Museum 

 one bufE-striped keelback ate 131 toads in the year, another 

 130, and a third 91 green frogs, Murray says that in Sind, 

 like piscator, it lives in pools and feeds on fish. If this is a 

 fact, its habits in that locality are different from those mani- 

 fested in other parts of India. 



Foes. — Doubtless so harmless and diminutive a reptile 

 frequently provides food for predaceous animals and birds. 

 Evans and I once knew it fall a victim to the snake Xenopeltis 

 unicolor, and I found one inside a banded krait {Bungarus 

 fasciatus) in Dibrugarh. Mr. Primrose some years ago 

 recorded one being swallowed by the green tree snake 

 {Dyrophis mycterizans). 



Breeding. — (a) The Sexes : It is remarkable that though 

 the sexes are very evenly balanced in many parts of India in 

 some localities, notably Assam, there is a great disparity in 

 favour of the female. Thus, out of 37 specimens sexed in 

 Cannanore, 20 were male and 17 female ; and out of 118 sexed 

 in Eyzabad, 57 were male and 61 female. In Assam — hills 

 and plains — females are more than twice as numerous, for 

 out of 89 specimens sexed in Dibrugarh, 62 were female ; and 

 in ShiUong, in the Khasi Hills, no fewer than 16 out of 21 

 specimens proved to be this sex. In a clutch of 5 eggs brought 

 to me in Dibrugarh, there were 4 females and 1 male. The 

 female is usually at all times longer than the male. Starting 

 from the egg it frequently has a shght advantage, it more 

 than maintains this as growth advances, and finally attains 



