12 RepL 
REPTILIA. 
OPHIDIA. 
J. G. Fischer remarks upon the methods at present employed in 
drawing up the descriptions of Snakes, and upon the inconvenience 
attending the practice of including certain essential characters which 
are of immediate and primary importance in the determination of 
species in the general text of the description. He advises the adoption 
of a formula placed as a heading to the diagnosis, according to the plan 
so long in use among ichthyologists, and showing at a glance the chief 
numeral characters, indicated as follows : — 
SI. — Number of longitudinal rows of scales in the median line of the 
body. 
O. — Number of ante- and post-oculars. 
L. — Number of upper and lower labials (as a fraction). 
T. — Number and series of temporal shields between the parietal and 
the labials. 
V. — Number of ventral shields to anal exclusively. 
A. — The single or (as a fraction) the double anal. 
Sc.— Number of the single or (as a fraction) divided caudal shields. 
These suggestions form the preface to a paper in which the writer has 
described a number of new species in conformity with the rules thus laid 
down. Verh. Ver. Hamb. (n. s.) iii. p. 76. 
For Jolyet & Blanchard’s investigations on the presence of special 
ligaments in the spinal marrow of Snakes (Soc. de Biol., April, 1879), see 
J. de I’Anat. Phys. 1879, p. 628 (analysis), and Zool. Anz. ii. 1879, 
pp. 284-286. 
On vibrations in the tail of Snakes; C. Aldrich, Am. Nat. xiii. p. 712. 
Typhlops bipartitus, sp. n., Sauvage, Bull. Soc. Philom. (7) iii. p. 60, 
New Guinea. 
Typhlops ligatus^ p. 775, fig. 3, and curvirostris, p. 776, fig. 3, Aus- 
tralia, cuneirostrisj p. 775, fig. 4, Barawa, spp. nn., Peters, MB. Ak. Berl. 
1879. 
Eryx (Rhoptrura) reinhardti^ Schleg., described and figured ; Fischer, 
Verh. Ver. Hamb. (u. s.) iii. p. 91, pi. iii. 
Chondropytlion pulcher^ Sauv., =,(7. azureus, Mey. ; observations on the 
genus, which is made to rank as a new tribe intermediate between Boa 
and Python : Boulenger, Bull. Soc. Zool. iv. p. 146. 
Python curtus (Schleg., MS.), sp. n. (diagnosis only), Hubrecht, Notes 
Leyd. Mus. 1879, p. 244, note xlvi. 
Python sehcB. The peritoneum accompanies and does not exceed the 
genital organs ; dissection of two adults. F. Lataste & B. Blanchard, 
Bull. Soc. Zool. iv. pp. 95-112. 
Python molurua from Ajmere, Rajputana ; Blanford, J. A. S. B. xlviii. 
pt. ii. p. 127. 
Liasis cornwalUaiua, p. 85, fig. 1, Cornwallis Island, Torres Straits, and 
duceboracensis, p. 86, fig. 2, Duke of York Island, Gunther, Ann. N. H. (5) 
iii., spp. nn. 1 
