32 



In the description of the conspicuous colour-markings of 

 this species the British Museum Catalogue, while correctly 

 stating the neck and throat to be marked with large blackish 

 reticulations on a white ground, adds that the belly is immacu- 

 late. In the larger of the two above-mentioned Museum speci- 

 mens the chest was marked by four well-marked single, irregu- 

 larly zig-zagging, but on the whole, transverse black bands, 

 and the belly by six double bands of similar disposition, the 

 reticular pattern appearing on the sides. A very little fore- 

 and-aft approximation, however, of the ventral bands would 

 have formed a reticular pattern by the meeting of the angles 

 of the zig-zag lines. In the smaller specimen the belly was 

 marked with a reticular pattern similar to that on the sides 

 of the neck, only much fainter in colour. 



Fat-bodies (Corpora adiposa). — A median longitudinal 

 incision through the front of the abdominal walls exposed on 

 either side a large lobulated, dorsoventrally compressed mass 

 of firm, bright-yellow fat, which, but for its slender vascular 

 attachments at the posterior end, lay free in an apparently 

 closed extra-peritoneal cavity. The inner or median wall of 

 this cavity was formed by a smooth, tough membrane, which 

 apparently constituted the parietal peritoneum of the 

 abdomen, while on the outer side the fat mass lay in close 

 contact with the glistening inner surface of the lower ribs and 

 abdominal walls. 



The constituent lobules composing these fat masses were, 

 for the most part, irregularly, transversely arranged, the 

 length of the lobules being generally coincident with the width 

 of the adipose mass, though some fell short of this, and, in 

 consequence of their close and accurate coaptation, the body 

 as a whole appeared as a more or less superficially lobulated, but 

 otherwise compact, mass. The compactness was, however, only 

 apparent, for the constituent lobules were very easily and 

 naturally separable from one another, being held together only 

 by a superficial connective tissue capsule of extreme tenuity 

 and slight vascularity on the front and back of the organ, but 

 of rather firmer texture at the ends of the lobules, where these 

 together formed the lateral margins of the body. Thus, when 

 the removed fat mass was held up by one end, the weight of 

 the dependent lobules was sufficient to rupture to a great ex- 

 tent the connective tissue attachments of the lobules on the 

 front and back, so that these fell away from one another for 

 the greater part of their length, remaining joined chiefly at 

 their ends, that is to say, at the lateral edges of the body, where 

 the inter-lobular attachments were strongest. The appear- 

 ance under these circumstances was that of a thick pad or 

 cushion of fat perforated by transversely disposed fenestra, 



