116 SNAKES OF CEYLON. 



on the tea estates around Dibrugaih, on several occasions a 

 female was unearthed and brought to me with her eggs. 

 Frequently eggs were brought without the dam, but with the 

 report that a snake had been seen with them. On one 

 occasion eggs brought with the attendant parent were found 

 to contain embryos 2 J to 3 inches long. 



It seems certain that the parent is not unremitting in her 

 attentions, for on several occasions when eggs were unearthed 

 the cooly upon interrogation denied that there was any snake 

 with them. 



(e) Period of Incubation : This almost certainly depends 

 upon temperature, and should, therefore, be more protracted 

 in the hills than in the plains. 



In Rangoon a female laid nine eggs on August 11, which 

 hatched a month later, viz., one on September 10 and six on 

 September 11. The remaining eggs were non-fertile. I feel 

 certain from other observations and the conditions under 

 which these eggs were placed that the incubating period was 

 artifioiaJly abbreviated. They were placed on damp cotton 

 wool, inside a wide-iiiouthed, stoppered bottle and placed 

 within a couple of yards or so of an earthenware basin contain- 

 ing live embeis. These fire receptacles are in ordinary use in 

 Burma in the rains and are placed beneath a wicker cage on 

 which one's clothes are placed to dry. Though the bottle was 

 stood outside the cage, it must have derived considerable heat 

 from the contained embers. 



(/) The Eggs: Inside the parent the ova lie in a single 

 ■string like the beads of a necklace, their long axes disposed in 

 the length of the body. They do not overlap one another, 

 nor lie transversely, as is the case with their more prolific 

 relative piscator. In their later stages, omng to pressure 

 within a contracted space, their poles are strongly flattened 

 against one another, but no suggestion of this flattening is 

 seen after they are discharged. 



Immediately after expulsion, the egg investment is moist and 

 .sticky, so that many or all the eggs become firmly adherent to 

 one another to form a cluster. They are pure white in colour, 

 Hud the ox-iciiUu' investment pliant like white kid. They are 

 i<oft to the touch, and their tension rafher tinner than that of a 



