3 8 DESCRIPTION OF 
REMARKS 
This subject, killed at Bombay in 1803, was received from Dr. Scott, and supposed 
to be of the same species by which a boy, belonging to Mr. Leachman, had been 
mortally wounded a few years before. From its venemous apparatus no doubt can be 
entertained of its atrociousness, and indeed all external appearances condemn it. 
I have referred to the figure in Seba, Tab. 94, as approaching nearest to the present 
subject. It differs however in the shape of the rostrum, and still more in representing 
fangs in the under jaw: an anomaly of which there is no other instance, so far as I 
know. 
That Seba ascribes fangs to both jaws can admit of no doubt. “ Ori tarn supra, quam 
infra, haud plures quatuor insident dentes, longi, incurvi, acuti, quos emittere rursus 
rursusque recondere valet animal.” Vol. II. p. 99. 
The Serpens Corallina Amboinensis of Seba, PI. 30, has no fangs in the under jaw, 
and in the shape and lamina of the rostrum, comes nearer my specimen than either of 
the figures, PI. 93 and 94. 
What Seba depicts as testiculos, Tab. 93, is the double penis, and in my specimen 
is much more conspicuous ; so that his Bitin, PL 94, is not a female. 
A good description of the Bitin, as far as a dried specimen admitted, has been given 
by Gronovius (Amph. Zool. Hist. PI. 68, No. XLI.) ; but though he refers, under doubt, 
to the figures in Seba, it is plain from the shape and shortness of the tail, that his Bitin 
belonged to neither of the two, but rather to the Serpens Corallina Amboinensis of Seba, 
Tab. 30. The abdominal scuta in his specimen were 141, the caudal squamae 24. 
Much has been written concerning this serpent ; authors in succession copying from 
one another. Fernandes (Hist. Rept. Tract. III. p. 70, Rome 15.) represents it of enor- 
mous bulk, in the Island of Cuba, with fangs of the length of a finger 
