28 
DESCRIPTION OF 
The trunk. The neck roundish, smaller than the head. The body much compressed, 
and more slender near the vent than near the head. The tail tapers rapidly to a long, 
small, horny point. The scales ovate, and smooth. 
The length two feet three inches, of which five inches belong to the tail. 
The colour. The head cineritious, with an oblique black fillet from each orbit ; and 
a bifid blotch of the same colour on the crown : the cheeks streaked with black. The 
trunk nearly of the colour of the head, with a row of distinct dark brown spots, round 
or oval, on each side of the ridge of the back : on the tail, the spots run into each 
other. The scuta are marked on their anterior edges, with four, or three, obsolete dusky 
points. 
OBSERVATIONS. 
The specimen was received from Java, without country name, or description. Of 
four different specimens examined, the variation in the number of scuta and squamae 
was very inconsiderable: the colour and maculae were alike in all. 
The present subject, in the compressed form of the trunk, in the colour and dispo- 
sition of the dorsal spots, bears a strong resemblance to the serpent last described. 
No. XXIV. 
COLUBER. 
Scuta Abdominalia 209 
Squama Subcaudales 160 
Serpens viridis ore acuminato Aspidis species. Seba 
Thes. V. ii. Tab. 5 7. fig. 4. 
Col. Nasutus. Shaw Zool. V. iii. Part ii. p. 54 8. 
Called by the natives 
The head long, wedge-form ; the rostrum narrow, compressed, sharp, but not turned 
up at the point as in the Coluber Mycterizans. The usual front lamina (which in other 
serpents covers the point of the nose) extends internally on the mouth, and projects 
externally a very little beyond the first pair of laminae. In the Coluber Mycterizans, 
the front lamina though somewhat reverted interiorly, is elongated externally into a 
slender blunt point which turns upwards and backwards : in other respects there is a 
strong similitude. The first pair of laminae separating the nostrils, pyramidal, cut 
obliquely at the base ; the next pair oblong, large, rounded behind ; the central lamina 
