AUSTRALIAN SNAKES. 
75 
Eorde’s Dwarf Snake. Cacophis fordei. 
(Plate XII, figs. 8, 8a.) 
Cacophis fordei, Krefft , Proc. Zool. Soc., 1869. 
Scales in 15 rows. 
Abdominal plates, 167 to 172. 
Subcaudals in two series, 36/36. 
Two anal plates. 
Total length, 13 inches. 
Head, f inch. 
Tail, If inch. 
Body elongate and rounded, head rather small, not distinct from 
trunk, flat, regularly shielded ; vertical moderate, with a very sharp angle 
behind; superciliaries much smaller ; occipitals slightly larger than the 
vertical; rostral rather depressed, with a groove on its lower edge; one 
anterior, two posterior oculars; one large and elongate temporal shield 
with two others behind, the upper one being nearly as large as the first 
temporal. Six upper labials, the third and fourth coming into the orbit; 
these shields increase from the first to the last, which is the largest. The 
lower labials are also six in number; the eye is small, with rounded pupil. 
Scales hexagonal, about as broad as they are long, except the upper 
rows on the back, which are more elongate. The head is scarcely distin¬ 
guishable from the body, and for one-fourtliof the snake’s whole length there 
is no increase in size; the body then gradually enlarges, being much stouter 
posteriorly, with a short and very distinct tail. In young and half-grown 
individuals, these characters are not so clearly defined, the tail is nearly of 
the same size as in the adult, rather stout, but distinct from the body. 
The general color is a kind of sepia brown above in adults, much lighter 
anteriorly, a white or yellowish collar dividing the head from the neck. 
This collar commences at the last labial shield, covers five scales in length, 
by one or (at the angle) two scales wide; it then crosses the neck, the 
width of a scale or less, and joins the opposite angle. The shields on the 
side of the face are all more or less spotted with white, including the outer 
edges of the superciliaries, the rostral, and the first pair of frontals. The 
general color of the body which covers the outer margins of every abdominal 
plate, is rather jagged and irregular in the middle, but sharply defined on 
the sides, particularly in young individuals; the inner margins of the two- 
rowed subcaudals are marked in the same way to the tip. The abdominal 
