No. 39—1889.] zoological tables. 189 



bones of one side, or, if not a rare species, cutting off the 

 head of a spirit specimen and skinning it, then drying it 

 hard in the hot sun. Prepared in this way the gums will 

 shrivel and the teeth protrude, and none will be lost. It 

 will be seen that the gums are crowded with teeth, the more 

 advanced ready to take the place of those in use. Thus, the 

 cobra seems at first sight to have several fangs, but only 

 one on each side is united with the bone, and in actual 

 use. 



The teeth in No. 27 (Dendrophis pictus ) and No. 39 ( Chry- 

 sopelea ornata ) are identical, or almost so to the eye ; but in 

 No. 39 some of the last teeth in the upper jaw (posterior 

 maxillary) are grooved. This is a very slight character, and 

 difficult to demonstrate. Schlegel took no uotice of this 

 distinction, and united Nos. 27 and 39 in the same genus, 

 Dendrophis. Boie places D. ornata in another genus, Ghry- 

 sopelea, in which Dr. Gunther follows him, keeping Den- 

 drophis and Ghrysopelea in the same family, Dendrophidce. 

 Prof esser Huxley, in his " Anatomy of Vertebrates," divides 

 the order Ophidia into sub-orders according to their dentition. 

 In the Aglyphodontia none of the maxillary teeth are 

 grooved, in the Ophisthoglyphia some of them are ; hence 

 the genera Dendrophis and Chrysopelea are at once widely 

 separated. Dr. Boulenger does not consider the Ophidia as 

 an order, but only a sub-order, and three of Professor 

 Huxley's sub-orders are merely sections of the family 

 Colubridce. This, however, makes no change in the relative 

 positions of the above-named genera : they belong to 

 different sections. 



Whether this difference really separates these two very 

 closely allied species so widely is not a subject for con- 

 sideration here. I have only to consider how the teeth are 

 to be treated, considered apart from their other characters ; 

 and I think there can be no doubt that they do belong to 

 different types. 



We find a series of types a to h including all the species 

 from 1 to 34, in which grooved teeth never occur; and another 



