HERPETOLOGICAL NOTES. 
By H. a. Longman. 
BOIDAE. 
(Plate XIV.) 
CHONDROPYTHON VIRIDIS (Sehlegel). 
A specimen of this well-known Papuan species was received from the Claudie 
Goldfield, Cape York Peninsula, in October, 1936, from Mr. S. H. Boyd, through 
Mr. C. Ogilvie. It was approximately five feet in length (coiled). I>r. Donald F. 
Thomson, who has done excellent work on our northern snakes, recorded this addition 
to the Australian fauna the previous year, with notes on its habits. ^ 
MORELIA SPILOTES VARIEGATA (Gray). 
In the course of an important paper on Australian specimens collected for 
the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, Mr. Arthur Loveridge has resurrected 
the Linnean species argus for our common and very variable Carpet Snake. ^ As this 
species is based on Seba’s figure showing a snake with large shields on the head, it is 
not surprising that Boulenger rejected it, especially as the locality was thought to be 
Africa.3 Apart from the doubt as to whether our snake was ever available for Seba 
to illustrate, the presence of large head shields makes it difficult to associate the 
Carpet Snake with this possibly composite and hypothetical species. Mr. Loveridge 
follows Dr. Olive Stull, who is revising the Boidae,^ in reviving the genus Morelia and 
the Linnean species argus. 
It may here be appropriately recorded that in Queensland the common coastal 
form, extending to several islands, is variegata and not spilotes. 
ASPIDITES MELANOCEPHALUS (Krefit.) 
(Plate XIV, Fig. 1.) 
Three living specimens of this interesting snake were received from Mr, H. 
Muller, Beresford Station, near Clermont, Central Queensland, in May last. The 
largest snake was seven feet in length, and this is illustrated on Plate XIV, fig. 1. 
These are the first living specimens to be received here. Although easily handled 
and somewhat sluggish, the Black-headed Rock Snake presents a formidable appear- 
ance when irritated, especially when the fore part of the body is sinuously curved 
^Thomson D. F. P.Z.S., 1935, p. 724. Plates 1 & 11. 
^ Loveridge, Bull. Mus. Comp, Zoo!., Vol. LXXVII, 1934, p. 269. 
^ Boulenger, Catal. Snakes Brit. Mus., 1, 1893, p. 82, 
^ Stull, Olive Griffith. Proc, Boston Soc, Nat. Hist., Vol. 40, 1935, p. 395. 
