FASCICULI MALATENSES 
166 
feeds chiefly on skinks. On Bukit Besar, we watched a large specimen 
on the look-out for prey. It had its tail and the posterior half of its 
body coiled among the branches of a small shrub growing among long 
grass, while the anterior half of its body stretched outwards without support, 
the neck being arched. This position was retained for some minutes, and 
then an abrupt movement changed the direction of the head and neck, 
without an alteration in the position of the tail and that part of the body 
coiled in the shrub. The same movement was repeated at intervals, so 
that the snake viewed all quarters in turn. When annoyed, D, prasinus 
puffs out its slender neck so that it attains a girth approximately equal 
to that of the body, and by so doing causes the skin to be stretched and 
the black and blue-grey markings between the scales to be displayed. The 
three colour-varieties, the commonest of which has in life the general colour 
of the dorsal surface a bright leaf-green, while the others have it emerald 
green and golden brown respectively, are found together in the Patani States, 
and the difference in their appearance does not appear to be due either to age, 
to sex, or to environment/ 
71. Chrysopetea or n at a, Shaw 
Jaior, 
* Also a common species in the Patani States, Senggora, Patalung, and 
Trang, frequently entering native houses and lodging in the roof. The 
commonest coloration in these States is blackish, finely chequered and 
veined with greenish yellow. Individuals thus coloured are called ularjelbiong 
by the Malays of the Patani States, jeldtong , the colour of the Ibtong monkey, 
Presbytes (Semnopithecus) obscurus , being a dark slaty grey. When a specimen 
has scarlet and black spots on the sides, it is called ular batu daching , or 
" balance-weight snake,” because these spots resemble' the little scarlet and 
black “ crabs' eye " seeds, used as weights in the Malay goldsmiths’ scales/ 
72. Thalassophis artnandalii, Laidlaw 
Distira annandalii, Laidlaw> P.Z.S., 1901, ii, p. 579, pl.xxxv. 
Head moderate, body short and stout, strongly compressed behind the 
neck. Rostral broader than deep ; nasals small, separated by a pair of large 
internasals, which widen in front, upper head shields more or less broken up, 
the parietals small and separated from each other, and sometimes also from 
the frontal, by very small scales ; frontal and supraocular unusually large, 
well developed, eye separated from the upper labials by one or two suboculars, 
one or two prae-, and one or two postoculars ; temporal scales small, numerous; 
