AUSTRALIAN SNAKES. 51 
Duméril and Bibron state that this species inhabits Tasmania, where 
M. Verreaux discovered it in 1844. Many naturalists are resident in that 
island, and collectors pay frequent visits to it, but all have failed to obtain 
another specimen during four and twenty years. Dr. Ginther mentions 
that the British Museum received this snake from Baranquilla, at the 
mouth of the River Magdalena, in New Granada; but when the American 
genus Brachyurophis was discovered in Australia, Giinther concluded that 
his collector deceived him, by purchasing the specimens of Furina calonotos 
in England. So much is certain, however,—that this species does not inhabit 
Tasmania, and is not found in Southern Victoria or New South Wales. 
It will be as well to state here that the Purina textilis of D. & B. 
(though differing in the number of ocular shields) is in all probability a 
young specimen of Diemenia superciliosa with the oculars accidentally 
divided. There is a specimen with three posterior oculars in the Museum 
Collection. 
VERREAUX’S SNAKE. Furina bimaculata. 
Furina bimaculata, Dum. & Bibr., p. 1240. Brachysoma bimaculatum, Gathr., Colubr. 
Snakes, p. 229. 
«* Pale brown above, head and neck black above, with white muzzle 
and white collar.” Discovered in 1844 in Tasmania, by M. Verreaux, no 
other specimen has since been found. 
An example of this snake has been purchased by the British Museum, 
the vendor giving West Australia as its habitat, which is a more likely 
locality than Tasmania. 
BRACHYUROPHIS, Giinther. 
Body rounded; head short, not distinct from neck; tail short; 
rostral shield large, with a sharp anterior edge, but not recurved; two 
pairs of frontals; one nasal, no loreal, it being replaced by the hinder 
portion of the nasal. Scales smooth, rhombic, without groove, in seventeen 
rows; anal bifid, subcaudals two-rowed. Eye small, with circular pupil; 
the anterior maxillary tooth longest, grooved. 
