THE POISONOUS SNAKES OF INDIA. 11 



The first essential point in the identification of a krait is to find 

 the enlarged vertebral row of scales. The enlargement is very- 

 obvious, and without this the specimen cannot be a krait. Unfor- 

 tunately, however, for our purpose this distinction is not absolutely 

 confined to the kraits, since a few harmless snakes are similarly 

 distinguished, viz., the genera Bipsadomorphus, Bendrophis, and 

 Bend/relaphis, some species of Amhlycephalus, Xenelaphis hexago- 

 notus, and Elachistodon westermanni, and it is due to this fact that 

 other supplementary characters are necessary to formulate a rigid 

 rule. 



Supplementary generic characters. — Other important characters to 

 be observed in the scale arrangement of kraits, but not necessarily 

 peculiar to them, are as follows : — The nasal shield touches the 1st 

 and 2nd supralabials, but never the 3rd. Loreal absent, so that only 

 two scales intervene between the eye and the nostril. Temporal, a 

 single shield touching the 5th and 6th supralabials. Suprralabials 

 7, the 3rd and 4th touching the eye. Posterior Sublinguals touch 

 the 4th infralabial shield (rarely 3rd also). The 4th infralabial is 

 the largest of the series, and touches only 2 scales behind. The 

 costals are the same number in the whole length of the body, except 

 in some specimens of sindanus .and walli. Anal entire. Subcaudals 

 entire throughout, or in some species only at the base, the remain- 

 ing shields being divided. The iris is black in all species except 

 B. fasciatus, in which the pupillary edge is thinly margined 

 golden, and the pupil which is round in form is only discernible 

 during life in this one species. 



The shields on the heads of all kraits are so closely similar in 

 number and form that with the exception of the 2nd supralabial 

 they are of no assistance in separating the species. The numbers 

 of rows of scales over the back, however, vary from 13 to 

 19, and the vertebral row varies in breadth in some of the species. 

 The colour, too, is very distinctive in all the species, and habitat is 

 of great importance. 



11 of the 12 known members of the genus occur within our Indian 

 limits. Two are common, viz., Bungarus cceruleus and B. fasciatus 

 but the rest are local and uncommon, some being specially rare. 



