INDIAN SERPENTS. 
33 
thickness throughout. The tail short, ovate, smaller than the head, and ends in a blunt 
point. The scales on the occiput and upper part of the neck, round and contiguous ; 
on other parts more ovate and imbricate. They are all smooth, and look as if varnished ; 
there is no abdominal row distinguished by their size ; but the subcaudal squamae 
resemble scutella. 
The length nine inches, two lines ; the latter claimed by the tail. 
The colour on the crown and back dark chesnut ; there is a narrow, cross, yellowish 
fillet on the occiput, and two of the same colour on the neck ; along the rest of the 
trunk maybe counted about twenty-eight pair of similar fillets, these points alternating, 
not joining ; the abdomen of a lighter chesnut, with above thirty cross bands of paler 
brown with ragged margins ; the under part of the tail lighter than the abdomen, and 
on each side of the vent there is a black dot. 
OBSERVATIONS. 
Two specimens of this serpent were received from Tranquebar, where its bite is 
said to produce great weakness, and such a wasting of flesh, that the skin hangs loose, 
and may be handled like a piece of white cloth. The absence of poisonous organs 
stands against this fiction. 
No. XXIX. 
ANGUIS. 
Squama Abdominales 194. 
Squama Subcaudales 6. 
Anguis Maculata ; Lin. Sys, Nat. 391. Called by the natives 
The head not thicker than the neck, short ; the front slightly declivous, the rostrum 
obtuse. The front pair of laminae triangular, and perforated by the nostrils ; the next 
pair large, sub-orbicular ; the three between the eyes ovate, the middle one smallest ; 
in the place of the semicordate laminae there are two ovate, and scales of the same shape 
cover the occiput. 
The mouth rather wide, the marginal row of teeth complete : no fangs. The eyes 
orbicular, distant, small. The nostrils small. 
The trunk is sub-cylindrical, and nearly of equal thickness, or swells very incon- 
siderably ; the circumference within an inch of the vent rather exceeds that of the 
neck, and the short tail differs less from the head in size than in shape. 
PART III. 
