282 SHORT NOTES. 



in the evening and there made a meal of a gravid sow, for 

 when it was skinned next day it was found to contain 

 thirteen pigs of various sizes in all, and by these the reptile 

 had been so distended that it was unable to make it's way 

 out through the hole by which it had entered. 



While pythons under twenty feet are common enough, 

 the occurrence of a 30ft. snake in the Peninsula seems to 

 me of sufficient interest to be recorded here. 



C. Boden Kloss, f. z. s. 



Account of three Snakes. 



Coluber oxycephalies. This snake is usually bright green 

 above and of a paler colour below, the tail being yellowish 

 brown as if it were withered : the Dyaks here on that account 

 call this snake the Ular Matiko. A short time ago the 

 Museum received a large specimen over 4 feet long which 

 had no trace of a green colour : dorsally throughout the 

 animal had a uniform brownish colour like that of the tail of 

 a normal form ; ventrally it was pale yellowish. In other 

 respects the specimen conforms precisely to the description of 

 C. oxtjcephalus. In the Museum Catalogue of snakes Mr. 

 R. Shelford my predecessor states that on the sea coast 

 near the mouth of Trusan river he took a brilliant ochreous 

 specimen of this species which was put in formol : after 

 two or three days it turned green but finally the specimen 

 became rotten and had to be thrown away. Possibly his 

 specimen was the same as the variety now described. The 

 colour of my variety however is quite permanent in methy- 

 lated spirits. 



Dipsadomorphus cynodon The British Museum catalogue 

 describes 3 distinct colour varieties of this rather large 

 snake. Our Museum has 19 specimens, of which one from Bau 

 received a year ago and one from Kuching just arrived are of 

 the type described below which does not come directly 

 under any one of the 3 varieties described by Mr. Bonlenger 

 but is not far from his variety B. 



Jour. Straits Branch 



