Seen and Lost, 
375 
tion was scorched and dead, and dry as ashes. The 
ground being so favourable, I crossed this low 
plain at a swinging gallop, and in about thirty 
minutes’ time. In that half-hour I saw a vast 
number of snakes, all of one kind, and a species 
new to me ; but my anxiety to reach my destina- 
tion before the oppressive heat of the afternoon 
made me hurry on. So numerous were the snakes 
in that green place that frequently I had as many 
as a dozen in sight at one time. It looked to me 
like a coronella — harmless cokibrine snakes — but 
was more than twice as large as either of the two 
species of that genus I was already familiar with. 
In size they varied greatly, ranging from two to 
fully five feet in length, and the colour was dull 
yellow or tan, slightlj^ lined and mottled with shades 
of brown. Among dead or partially withered grass 
and herbage they would have been undistinguishable 
at even a very short distance, but on the vivid 
green turf they were strangely conspicuous, some 
being plainly visible forty or fifty yards away ; and 
not' one was seen coiled up. They were all lying 
motionless, stretched out full length, and looking 
like dark yellow or tan-colonred ribbons, thrown on 
to the grass. It was most unusual to see so man 3^ 
snakes together, although not surprising in the cir- 
cumstances. The December heats had dried up all 
the watercourses and killed the vegetation, and 
made the earth hard and harsh as burnt bricks ; and 
at such times snakes, especially the more active non- 
venomous kinds, will travel long distances, in their 
slow way, in search of water. Those I saw during 
my ride had probably been attracted by the mois- 
