Annals of the Transvaal Museum. 
17 
CATALOGUE 
OF THE 
SOUTH AFRICAN SNAKES IN THE COLLECTIONS OF 
THE TRANSVAAL MUSEUM, PRETORIA, THE 
ALBANY MUSEUM, GRAHAMSTOWN, AND THE 
STATE MUSEUM, BLOEMFONTEIN. 
By Lewis Henry Gough, Ph.D., Assistant in the 
Transvaal Museum. 
After having identified the snakes in the Collections of 
the Albany Museum, Grahamstown, of the State Museum, 
Bloemfontein, and of the Transvaal Museum, Pretoria, in all 
about 1000 specimens, the records obtained appear to me 
interesting chiefly because of their bearing on the problem of 
Geographical Distribution. 
Exact records of the localities from whence specimens of 
South African snakes have been obtained are rare, and as Mr. 
Boulenger remarks (“ On a collection of Batrachians and 
Reptiles made in South Africa ” by Mr. C. B. H. Grant, etc., 
P.Z.S., 1905, II., p. 248), “ Our knowledge of chje exact 
distribution of these animals in South Africa is still very 
imperfect.” 
The list of records published here should go some way 
towards making their distribution better known, although still 
hardly sufficient to justify any attempt to map out the range 
of any of the species, even with the addition of the published 
records of other observers. 
In synonomy and systematic arrangement I have strictly 
followed Mr. Boulenger’s Catalogue of the British Museum.* 
Comparing Mr. Sclater’s list of South African species of 
snakes (Ann. S.A. Mus. I., pp. 97-102) if will be seen that my 
list does not contain twenty-five [exclusive Lycodon aulicus 
* Since receiving the revised proofs of this paper, “ Herpetology of 
Japan,” by L. Stejneger, has come to hand ; the changes in Nomenclature, 
there proposed, have consequently not been able to be followed, 
o 
