INDIAN SERPENTS. 
43 
The mouth middling size; the jaws nearly of equal length. The teeth sharp, reflex, and 
(as usual where there are no fangs,) a marginal, and two palatal, rows in the upper jaw. 
The eyes lateral, round, prominent. The nostrils small, round, near the rostrum. 
The trunk covered with ovate, close, smooth, imbricate, scales; the back carinated; the 
belly flat. 
The length, nine inches; thickness, at the neck, about that of a crow-quill; and, about 
the middle, hardly exceeds the size of a goose-quill: it tapers towards the tail , which mea¬ 
sures one inch eight lines, and is exceedingly slender, and sharp pointed. 
The colour of the head, pure yellow; the trunk, and the tail, a dark brown, and, as in 
the preceding, decorated the whole length by transverse bands, of the shape of dice-boxes, 
but of a pale yellow, without intermixture of dark dots, except one middle dot on each scale 
next the scuta. The scuta are yellow, like the bands. 
OBSERVATIONS. 
This snake approaches in many circumstances so near to the one last described, that it 
may possibly be only a variety of the same species; or the variation in colour may be 
ascribed to the difference of age, size, See.: but I thought it better to give a distinct descrip¬ 
tion and drawing, as it also was sent under the name of Cobra Monil, to which it is no more 
entitled than any of the preceding harmless snakes, so named erroneously. 
It is further remarkable, that though the Cobra Monil is familiarly talked of, by the Eu¬ 
ropeans in India, as well known, and highly venomous, yet, after much pains employed in 
the search, I never could procure the real animal; all those brought to me under that name prov¬ 
ing innocent snakes, except the small, young specimens of the Boa, No, I. already described. 
No. XXXV[II. 
COLUBER. 
Abdominal Scuta 
Sub-caudal Squama 
169 
50 
1219 , 
The head a little broader than the neck, ovate, obtuse, depressed; covered with ten la¬ 
minae: one in front of the rostrum, emarginate ; the next pair perforated by the nostrils, 
small, roundish; a pair similar in shape, but larger; the central lamina between the eyes, 
broad shield-form; the lateral, nearly oval; the hindermost pair, semi-cordate. 
The mouth small; the jaws nearly equal. Two palatal rows of teeth, and one marginal, 
in the upper jaw. 
The eyes lateral, small, oval. The nostrils almost close to the apex of the rostrum. 
The trunk round; scales smooth, ovate, imbricate. The length, one foot nine inches and 
