1840,] Description of a new species of Naga, or Cobra de Capello. 41 



the last of which is adopted as a new species, under the name of iV. 

 Rufa. 



Onreferi-ingtoSeba's workinthe Society*sLibrary,the following notices 

 of tlie Naga group are found in vol. ii. at plates 84, 89, 90, 94, 97. All 

 of ihese have the spectacle mark on the dilatation of the neck, except 

 No. 1, of plate 93, and No. 2 of pi. 97, which are called females, a sup- 

 position that has since been proved by Dr. Hunter to be erroneous, and 

 that they are merely varieties of the Col. Naia. Two others with the 

 spectacle mark No. I in pi. 85, and No. 4 in pi. 97, are said to want 

 the faculty of distending the neck, or to possess it in a very slight 

 degiee. 



Nos. 3 and 4 of pi. 89, resemble the present specimen in the circum- 

 stance of having the body marked by transverse bands, the former 

 throughout its whole length (whence Laurentini's specific name of fas' 

 c«a/rt), and the l itter for about ^rd of its length. But both have the 

 spectacle mark on the neck distinctly represented, the latter of a more 

 than lisual complicated pattern. Seba's description of No. 3, is Indian 

 serpent with a spectacle mark, elegantly ringed.*' 



"Its whole body, of a pale cinereous yellow, is encircled, from the head 

 to the very end of the tail, with reddish brown rings, some of which are 

 narrow, others broader. The order which the Creator has observed in 

 disposing those rings is such, that three of the narrow rings are inter- 

 posed between every two of the broad ones, a phenomenon certainly 

 most worthy of remark."* 



But no such arrangement is observable in the present species, and this, 

 together with the absence of the spectacle mark, and more especially 

 its great size, which could not have failed to have been noticed, seems 

 ^to establish it a new species i in which event it might wath propriety be 

 named Naia Vittata, the term fasciata having already been appropriated 

 to another, though an unascertained species. 



• Num. 3. Serpens, Indicus, cum Conspieillo, lepide circulafus, 



Totum hujus corpus, ex cinerea dilutd flavum, tenuibus, partim & latinsculia, annulis, 

 fusco-rubris, capite ad caudam usque ultimam ambitur. Ordo, quem summus rerum 

 Conditor in digerendis hisce annulis observavit, talis est, ut bini annuli, latiores, tres 

 semper alios tenuiores iatercipiant, phoenoraeno certS aniraa dversione dignissimo.. 

 Seba Thes. ii. ?. 95. 



