532 Memoranda on the Geology of Sikkim. 



nor are there flat places of large expanse in the bottom of 

 the valley, any where in which the water can stagnate. There 

 may be a spot or two which deserve to be excepted from the 

 character of healthiness, and these are marked as the habita- 

 tions of demons, who in the hills, as well as in the plains, 

 have the character of causing disease in waste and jungle 

 tracts. By my own experience I should pronounce the val- 

 leys healthy from November to May, for I travelled through 

 them during that period of the year, and had no ague or ill- 

 ness, yet so predisposed was my constitution from former 

 sickness to disease of this character, that passing through 

 the Terai, and remaining a few days at Titaleea in June, 

 brought on an attack of jungle fever. 



Description of a new species of venomous Snake ^ Elaps 

 Macclellandi. By J. T. Reinhardt, Junior, Professor 

 of Zoology, Copenhagen, 



This new species is of rather slender form; the short 

 head, the broad, rounded and obtuse muzzle, as well as small 

 eyes, resemble .Elaps lemniscatus. The nostrils are large 

 and situated between the 2 nasal plates, or perhaps rather 

 behind the first. In the upper jaw, as far as I could dis- 

 cover after a strict examination, no solid teeth are to be 

 found behind the venomous fangs. Among the plates of the 

 head, the occipital plates are distinguished by their size 

 and oblong form ; two temporal plates, lying one behind 

 the other, separate them from the labial plates, which are 

 7 at each side, of these the third and fourth border the 

 eye. There are two back plates and one occular. The 

 inferior labial plates are 6 in number at each side ; they in- 

 crease to the fourth, which is the largest of them all. 



The body is of the normal form of the genus ; it is cover- 

 ed with simple rhomboidal scales. The number of the 



