The White Snake 
of the Selangor Caves. 
Many of those who have visited the wonderfnl caves near 
Kwala Lumpur have heard tell of the curious white snakes 
which occur therein, but few have seen them, and no specimens 
were sent to Kurope for identification till this year, when several 
captured by Mr. C. B. Harvey and myself in December 1896 
were sent, together with a drawing made by the former, to the 
Natural History Museum, where Mr. Boulenger kindly iden- 
tified them as Coluber teniurus, a snake widely distributed 
throughout Eastern Asia, occurring at Darjiling, Sumatra, 
Borneo, and China, but not previously known to occur in the 
Malay Peninsula. 
The animals are quite harmless. They attain a length of 
over six feet, the largest taken being six feet seven inches long. 
In comparing the specimens from the Selangor caves with the 
description in the books of C. teniurus, one notices some con- 
siderable differences in color, and as this difference seems to 
have a bearing on the peculiar habits of the snake here, I will 
describe it. The top of the head is bluish grey, and there is a black 
line about an inch long through the eye towards the neck. The 
neck and back are of a pale ocreous color, each scale being 
tipped with isabelline, getting paler towards the tail; the centre 
of the back is yellowish, and the belly pale yellowish white. 
The tail has a white bar along the back line, and the under part 
is also pure white; along the sides runs a purplish grey bar, be- 
coming darker towards the tip, where it becomes back. The 
eyes are very large and black. 
This coloring, as will be seen, is a very remarkable one for 
a snake, and would make it very conspicuous if it were to live 
in the woods or other open places, but is, as will be explained, 
remarkably suitable for its usual habitat. As far as is known the 
snake occurs here only in the caves of Selangor; and, it is stated, 
also of Perak. It frequents the darkest portions of the caves, 
often living at a considerable distance from the mouth, but it 
can sometimes be met with at the mouth, or near one of the large 
