THE POISONOUS SNAKES OF INDIA. 
51 
The other venomous snakes of the Australian continent 
belong without exception to the Elapidse. About a dozen 
species of x\frican Elapidae are known, but others probably 
await discovery. The genus Elaps itself, as now restricted, is 
characteristic of tropical America. Some fifteen species have 
been carefully distinguished, besides those which are doubtful. 
The number of species of this family inhabiting Asia and its 
islands may for the present be put down as not far from 
twenty. 
Beyond the Indian Ocean Hydrophidse are scarce, save in the 
adjoining waters of the Pacific, along the coasts of Australia 
and the Eastern Archipelago. A few are found in other parts 
of the Pacific, and it is said, on good authority, that they have 
been seen, though not captured, in the neighbourhood of 
Panama. None are known from the Atlantic ocean. 
India is much richer in snakes than any other region of tlie 
globe. Some allowance, of course, must be made for the fact 
that the tropical fauna of our eastern possessions is far better 
kno^m than that of Africa or Australia. Nearly a hundred and 
fifty species of snakes, inhabiting the Indian peninsula, have 
already been described. Of these at least twenty-five are 
venomous. This estimate excludes the Hydro phidae. The true 
vipers are represented by only two species. The other terres- 
trial venomous snakes are about equally divided between the 
two families Crotalidae and Elapidse. 
Two-thirds of the Indian Crotalidse belong to one genus, 
Trimeresurus. These snakes rarely attain a length of three 
feet. Their prevailing colour is grass-green or brown, tints in 
obvious harmony with their arboreal life. They exhibit notably 
the characteristic physiognomy of the viperiform serpents, 
having a broad triangular head, a very narrow neck, and a 
venomous and non-venomous snakes j the number of species of the former 
being double that of the latter. Thus Mr. Krefft, in his ‘‘ Snakes of 
Australia,” published at Sydney in 1869, describes 21 non-venomous species, 
41 species of Elapidse and 1 viper, besides 15 species of sea-snakes, all 
venomous. To understand these numbers aright, let us remember that non- 
venomous species make up four-fifths of the snake population of the entire 
globe. We may add that of the non-venomous Australian species of snakes 
six are Pythons, while eight belong to the genus Typhlops. This is of all 
snakes that which least displays the most striking features of its order, that 
which is farthest removed from the mobile-jawed Crotalid^. There remain 
but seven ordinary colubrine species. Thus, while colubrine snakes pre- 
vail most in Australia, their aberrant and not their typical forms are those 
which predominate in this division of the globe, so noted in .other respects 
for the peculiarities of its fauna. 
