GO 
AUSTRALIAN SNAKES. 
Ramsay’s Snake. Hoplocephcilus ramsayi. 
(Plate XI, fig. 2.) 
Hoplocephalus ramsayi, Krefft, Proc. Zool. Soc., 1864, p. 181. 
Scales in 15 rows. 
Abdominal plates, 161. 
Two anal plates. 
Subcandal plates in a single series, 51. 
Total length, 101 inches. 
Tail, 2 inches. 
Body rather elongate and rounded; head scarcely distinct from 
neck, rather high and elongate, with obtuse muzzle; rostral just reaching 
to the surface of crown; anterior frontals moderate, rounded in front; 
posterior ones larger, bent down on the sides ; one anterior, two posterior 
oculars, the lower forming about one-fourth of the orbit; vertical narrow, 
six-sided, much longer than broad; superciliaries nearly the same size as 
the vertical; occipitals moderate, not forked behind; six upper labials, the 
third and fourth forming the lower part of the orbit; no loreal, replaced 
by the elongate nasal, second and third npper labial, anterior ocular, and 
bent down anterior frontal; one nasal, pierced by the nostril; scales 
moderate, rhomboidal, in fifteen rows ; tail rather short, scarcely distinct 
from trunk, tapering ; eye moderate, pupil rounded ; grooved fang in front, 
some smaller smooth teeth behind. 
Dark olive-green above, each scale tipped with reddish, in particular 
those on the sides; crown and a narrow vertebral line, one scale wide, 
somewhat darker than the other parts ; this line extends to the root of the 
tail; upper labials and chin-sliields whitish, marked with olive-brown in 
the upper corners. Beneath yellow, each ventral scale with a blackish 
margin ; subcaudals nearly black. 
Mr. E. P. Ramsay discovered this new snake in the neighbourhood 
of Braidwood, N. S. Wales; it is apparently a young specimen, its total 
length not exceeding 10J inches. 
