FASCICULI MALATENSES 
169 
village of Sal Kau. It had taken refuge in a pile of cocoanuts, from 
which it was persuaded to come out by a Chinaman armed with a long 
pole ; it attempted to crawl away, making no movement in our direction? 
though we were within a few yards of it. This was said to be the 
same individual which had bitten a man on the shin a day or two 
previously. According to this man’s own story, he had been passing along 
a path close to the house under which the specimen was shot, when 
an ular selor^ as big as a cat,” leaped out from behind a log and bit 
him. We were asked to see him the next day, and found him 
apparently dying of pain and fright ; his leg was tremendously swollen 
but not above the knee, and had a slightly bluish tinge, and he felt pain 
in the glands under the arm-pits and elsewhere. We applied such remedies 
as we were able, and, what was more important, persuaded him and his 
friends that we could cure him. When we left Sai Kau, a week later, 
he was well on the way to recovery. I have described this incident, 
because I think that there is strong circumstantial evidence that the man 
actually had been bitten by a Hamadryad. It was certain that he had been 
bitten by a large poisonous snake, for the marks of the fangs, which were 
just visible, were far apart. I do not know of any poisonous snake “ as 
big as a cat,” except a Hamadryad or a large cobra, for the Malays gauge 
the size of an animal by its girth, rather than its length or height, and 
the bite was rather high on the limb for it to have been that of a species 
that lies on the ground like Ancistrodon rhodostoma. It is not at all 
improbable that poisonous snakes’ are less deadly in the Malay Peninsula 
than the representatives of the same species in India, except, perhaps, the 
Hydrophinae.’ 
80. Callophis g^racillis, Gray 
Batang Padang, South Perak. 
81. Doliophis bivirgatus, Boie. 
Jalor. The typical form. 
82. Doliophis intestinaiis, Laur. 
Bukit Besar and Batang Patang (vars. annectensy Belgr. ; and lineata, Gray). 
‘ The Malays of Patani say that both D. hivirgatus and Z). intestinaiis^ 
which share the name of “sunbeam snake {ular sina frequently pro- 
gress with the bright coral-red part of their tails held upright, apparently 
in very much the same manner as Cylindrophis rufus^ as figured by Captain 
I. The proper Malay name of this snake is ular selor^ and it is through a mistake of my own that it is called 
ular telor (egg snake), in Mr. Laidlaw’s report on the snakes of the ‘ Skeat ’ Expedition. N. A. 
