ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 
T 43 
are various other modifications of the Innocuous Colubrinc 
snakes, such as the Desert snakes, the Ground snakes, 
the Blunt-heads, the Nocturnal tree snakes, the Whip 
snakes and the Wart snakes. There are generally) 
some examples to be seen here of Passerita mycterizans 
the common Whip snake of India. It is a bright 
green serpent with a long pointed snout, and it is 
usually found on trees. It has the evil reputation of 
striking at the eyes of people passing through forests 
and is ignorantly said to be deadly in its bite. The 
Tree snakes are also occasionally represented here by the 
handsome nocturnal species Dipsas trigonata, and by the 
most beautifully coloured of all snakes, Chrysopelea 
ornata. One of the most widely distributed of Indian 
snakes, and most common about Calcutta, is the small 
Ground snake, JLycodon aulicus , which is not unfrequently 
mistaken for the deadly Krait, Bungarus cceynleus. 
All the foregoing snakes are harmless, but the re¬ 
maining serpents are more or less deadly in their bite. 
They form two sub-divisions viz., the Venomous Colubrine 
snakes, and the Vipers. The former includes, first, the 
so-called Elapidcz represented by the Cobra, the Snake¬ 
eating cobra, the Ivraits, and the Callopnides, small thin poi¬ 
sonous snakes, the representatives of the American Elaps, 
and of certain poisonous snakes of Africa and of Australia 
allied to them ; and second, the true Sea snakes or Hydro- 
phidce , in which the nostrils are on the top of the head with 
one exception, whilst, in all, the tail is so compressed from 
side to side as to be converted into a paddle for swimming, 
a modification found in no other group of snakes. The 
second sub-division, Viperidce , includes two kinds, viz., the 
ordinary Vipers represented in India by only two species, 
