44 THE SNAKES OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 
even feed on termites or white ants. Unfortunately some 
snakes are poisonous and occasionally bite man or domestic 
animals, and it is desirable that all should be able to distinguish 
the poisonous from the non-poisonous. 
Most people wage war on all snakes on the principle that 
there is no good snake but a dead one ; but it is admittedly 
stupid to kill non-poisonous snakes and much better policy 
to allow them to live and prey on rats, mice, moles, &c., which 
damage our economic products or our gardens. 
The object of this article is to assist members to differentiate 
between poisonous and non-poisonous snakes and to induce 
a proportion to study this order and to assist in making a 
complete reference collection for the Society’s Museum. 
Quite a number have already come in, and it is hoped will 
shortly be classified and named. 
The list of snakes now given is a precis of the description of 
the snakes recorded as having been collected in East Africa, 
and is taken from the ‘ Catalogue of Snakes,’ by Mr. G. A. Boulen- 
ger, which was kindly presented to the Library of the Society 
by the Trustees of the British Museum. For a further and more 
technical description the volumes should be consulted. 
The' figures in this article will give an idea of a few typical 
classes of well-known snakes, and one is what may be termed 
an index diagram, as it gives the technical names of the various 
scales in a snake’s body, the accurate description of which is the 
main means of scientific identification. Some of these illustra- 
tions are reproduced from the ‘ British Museum Catalogue ’ and 
others from Vol. iii. of the ‘ Report of the Wellcome Laboratory,’ 
Khartum, who have kindly given permission to reprint them. 
Some forty-one species of snakes have been described from 
British East Africa and only ten of these are dangerous to man. 
This percentage gives, however, no index of the numerical 
proportions of the poisonous and non-poisonous species, and 
certain powerful members of the cobra group are, moreover, 
said to be of an aggressive nature. 
The snakes of East Africa have never been systematically 
collected all over the country, and it is highly probable that 
if this is done a number of new species may be brought 
to light. 
