882 
NOTES ON SNAKES IN EAST AFRICA 
the egg. The body scales are also exceptionally strongly 
keeled. The variations in colour are many. The variety 
found at Morogoro rather resembles the Rhombic Night Adder 
in colour and markings. Egg-eaters of this type were also 
collected in a trench at Mbunyi, and were brought into Makindo 
camp in a hollow log, in which was also a Zonure lizard. At 
Nairobi both all-black and all-brown varieties are to be 
obtained. 
An insignificant little bronze-olive snake called Homalosoma 
lutrix was taken in the hospital banda at Arusha. 
The Spotted Wood Snake ( Philothamnus semivariegatus), 
a single specimen of which was found dead in the road at 
Mombo, is also abundant at Morogoro, a favourite haunt of 
these reptiles being the acacia trees which form an avenue up 
to the Secretariat. The method of capturing this snake may 
be best illustrated by the following extract from the writer’s 
note under date of October 4 : 
‘ A Spotted Wood Snake was seen in the acacia trees near 
my tent. In a very short time I was after it, and pursued it to 
the topmost twigs, which I shook violently. With wonderful 
swiftness it travelled into the next tree, into which my toto 
climbed, and when it had got to the extreme end of a branch 
he also began to shake it. The snake wound itself tightly 
round, but by and by was worked loose and dislodged ; on 
reaching the ground — a fall of twenty feet — it made off without 
a moment’s hesitation, and when I seized it, it bit a couple of 
times drawing blood. ’ 
On one occasion, whilst standing under a tree in the native 
camp, a Wood Snake was blown down by the violence of the 
wind ; another snake was captured in the hood of a motor 
standing under the aforementioned avenue of trees. A female 
taken on November 25, which was 52 inches in length, contained 
six undeveloped eggs. 
The common East African Green Snake ( Chlorophis neglec- 
tus) was a common object lying on sprays of foliage of the 
bushes which overhung Nairobi river, and when disturbed 
they slipped quietly into the water. One was seen crossing 
the lawn of a house at Kerogwe. The writer found that they 
would feed on small frogs in captivity. From the Yala river 
