INDIAN SERPENTS. 
25 
Between the rostrum and the eye, situated as in the Bodroo Pam, there is a ringent 
aperture on each side, considerably larger than the nostril. 
The mouth wide. The fangs visible one each side, remarkably long. No marginal 
row above, and the palatal row, as well as the teeth in the under jaw, unusually small. 
The eyes globular. The nostrils very small, placed at the base of the front lamina. 
The trunk. From the head to the end of the tail carinated, the sides, which at first 
are compressed, dilate as they approach the flat, or plain abdomen. The tail taper 
rapidly to a small sharp point. The scales ovate, smooth, imbricate. 
The length twelve inches and a half : the tail two inches two lines. 
The colour. The upper part of the head brown, with a cineritious fillet on both 
sides running obliquely from each orbit along the occiput. The general colour cine- 
ritious, with many round or oval dark spots, of which thirty-three pair may be counted 
from the hind head to the end of the tail : some of the spots have ragged edges, and each 
pair nearly joins at the dorsal carina. The white abdomen is strewed with dusky dots 
and short lines : and next to the scuta on each side there is a row of small, dusky, 
round spots, which grow fainter and fainter as they approach the tail. 
OBSERVATIONS. 
This serpent also was received from Java, without name or memoranda relative to 
its history. 
It affords another instance of a venomous serpent with large laminae on the head, 
and scales on the trunk not carinated. Of the former, Cepede had met with no example 
except in the Coluber Naja. “Je n’ai vu que sur la tete du Naja les neuf grandes ecailles 
qui garnissent celle de la plupart du Couleuvres ovipares et non venimeuses.” * 
Considering the number of serpents Cepede examined, this remark deserves particular 
notice. He afterwards, however, found a second instance in the Coluber Hemachate ; t 
and Shaw gives a third in the Coluber Porphyriacus from New Holland. J 
* Hist. Natur. V. II. Discours, p. 67, 88. + P. I15. j Zool. V. III. p. 423. 
PART II. 
