242 APPENDIX IT 
30. Halys blomhoffii (Boie). Common near Kiu-kiane. 
31. Halys acutus, sp. n. 
This new species may be at once recognised by the upper part of the 
extremity of the snout being produced into a short, flexible, pointed lobe 
which projects from between the anterior frontal and the rostral shield 
The anterior frontals are small, longer than broad; the posterior very 
large, intermediate in size between the anterior frontals and the occipitals. 
Eye surrounded by a ring of small orbitals, of which those in front are 
rather elongate ; that below the eye is likewise long and crescent-shaped, 
separated by a small postocular from the superciliary shield. Seven 
upper labials, of which the second forms the anterior wall of the antorbital 
pit, the third and fourth being the largest. A series of three large temporal 
shields occupies the lower part of the temple, the space between this 
series and the occipital being covered by ordinary scales. 
Scales strongly keeled, the keels forming a high sharp ridge on the 
posterior part of the body. Each scale bears, besides the keel, on its 
extremity a pair of very small nodules; scales in twenty-one rows. Ventral 
shields 160; anal entire; subcaudals 60, of which the six or twenty 
anterior may be single. Extremity of the tail compressed, covered with 
comparatively large vertical scutes, and terminating in a long and com- 
pressed spine. 
The colour of the upper parts is brown, each side of the body being 
ornamented with w series of large dark-coloured triangles, the point of 
each triangle meeting that of the other side in the median line of the 
back. Lower parts whitish with a series of large rounded black spots on 
each side and smaller ones of irregular shape in the middle. The upper 
part of the head is uniform black ; a sharp line, which runs from the eye 
along the middle of the temporal scutes to the angle of the mouth, divides 
the black coloration of the upper parts from the white of the lower. 
This species is very remarkable, not only on account of the rostral 
lobe, but also for the modification of the scutellation of its compressed 
tail. Although this modification cannot in any way be taken as an initial 
step in the development of the rattle of Crotalus, the rattle being a modi- 
fication of the last dermal scute only into which the vertebral column is 
not prolonged, yet the tail of this species may exercise in a much smaller 
degree the same function as in the rattlesnake, and may be an instrument 
by which vibrations and sound are produced. It is well known also that 
many innocuous snakes are able to vibrate the extremity of their tail. 
To judge from its size and from the development of its poisonous apparatus 
this snake must be extremely dangerous. 
Three specimens are in the collection, of which the largest is forty-six 
inches long, the tail measuring 6 inches. It has been figured in Ann. 
Mag. Nut. Hist. 1888, I. pl. 12. 
