Chap. IX.] 



SNAKES. 



305 



its habits and the extent of its distribution over the 

 island are still left in uncertainty. 1 



Of ten species of snakes that ascend trees in Ceylon 

 to search for squirrels and lizards, and to rifle the nests 

 of birds, one half, including the green carawala, and 

 the deadly tic polonga, are believed by the natives to 

 be venomous; but the truth of this is very dubious. 

 I have heard of the cobra being found on the crown of 

 a coco-nut palm, attracted, it was said, by the toddy 

 which was flowing at the time, it being the season for 

 drawing it. Surrounding Elie House, near Colombo, 

 in which I resided, were a number of tall casuarinas 

 and India-rubber trees, whose branches almost touched 

 the lattices of the window of the room in which I usually 

 sat. These were a favourite resort of the tree-snakes, 

 and in the e£trly morning the numbers which clung to 

 them were sometimes quite remarkable. I had thus an 

 opportunity of observing the action of these creatures., 

 which seems to me one of vigilance rather than of 

 effort, the tongue being in perpetual activity, as if it 

 were an organ of feeling; and in those in which the 

 nose is elongated, a similar mobility and restlessness, 



1 Gtunth. Col. Snakes, p. 14. In terior and two posterior frontals ; 



the hope that some inquirer in no loreal shield; one small shield 



Ceylon will be able to furnish such before, two behind the eye ; seven 



information as may fill up this shields along the upper lip, the eye 



blank in the history of the haplo- being above the fourth. The scales 



cercus, the following particulars are disposed in seventeen longi- 



are here appended. The largest of tudinal series ; they are lanceolate 



the specimens in the British and strongly keeled. The upper 



Museum is about twenty-five inches parts are uniform blackish or 



in length ; the body thin, and much brown, with two dorsal rows of 



elongated; the head narrow, and small indistinct black spots ; occiput 



not distinct from the neck, the with a whitish collar, edged with 



tail of moderate length. Forehead darker. The lower parts uniform 



covered by three shields, one an- yellowish. 



X 



