32 
AUSTRALIAN” SNAKES. 
We have noticed before, that tbe Diamond Snake is of a glossy 
black, with a bright yellow spot in the centre of almost every scale, and 
with belly-plates of bright yellow, clouded with black. 
The Carpet Snake is uniformly greenish-brown, with darker irregular 
spots, enclosed by a still darker margin of about a scale wide, covering 
the body from the head to the root of the tail. The belly is pale straw 
colored, and the plates often spotted or margined with a neutral tint. 
There is much variety in the marking of different individuals, but the 
greater number have a pale, and sometimes interrupted and darker bordered 
streak on each side of the body, running from the neck to the vent. 
The ground color in old snakes is much darker than in young ones. 
Spirit specimens frequently turn quite white, the blotches appearing 
dark grey, or pale black. 
If the Carpet and Diamond Snake are really one and the same 
species, it is very curious to notice that they have so very defined a habitat. 
It was mentioned before, that Diamond Snakes were only found in a very 
limited district on the New South Wales coast, whilst Carpet Snakes 
occur in every other part of Australia except the said district, and in 
Southern Victoria. 
In their movements, and the way in which they obtain, kill, and 
devour their food, both species are so precisely similar, that further remarks 
on these particulars are unnecessary. With regard to their size, there is 
reason to believe that Carpet Snakes attain even larger growth than 
Diamond Snakes, and the Museum has lately received from Capt. Harley, 
of the steamer “Havilah,” a very fine specimen measuring 8 feet in length. 
This snake was taken at Cleveland Bay, and is of the same size as the 
monster Diamond Snake captured near the Point Piper Hoad, in the most 
fashionable suburb of Sydney, by Capt. Stackhouse, B.N., in July, 1868. 
It is possible that many larger snakes have been killed, but they 
are generally measured by the eye only, and we all know how apt one is 
to exaggerate the size of such quarry; there is nothing so good as a tape- 
line, if truth is to be ascertained ; but people do not generally care to be 
very particular, and after relating snake stories for years they make the 
size of the reptile increase as their story grows old. 
