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Show 170 DR. J. ANDERSON ON INDIAN REPTILES. [Feb. 21, Dark blackish-brown variety. No. inches. Ventrals. Caudals. Bands. Var. a. 1 32_ 198 68 26 2 ? 196 63 28 No. 2 is uniform dark brown, with all the scales and angles of the ventrals and caudals minutely dotted or speckled with the same colour, with twenty-eight pale brown transverse narrow black- edged bands. The posterior two-thirds of the body, excluding the tail, have the ventrals entirely black, with the exception of a narrow longitudinal line on the keel. The angle, too, of every alternate or third ventral is blacker than the intervening ones. The anterior third of the body and the caudals are squarely black-spotted ; but the angles are marked in the same way as the posterior two-thirds. No. 4. This specimen is uniform blackish brown, with twenty-seven almost black spots with still darker margins. The first two on the neck are in pairs and side by side, but those behind them are united in figures of eight placed transversely ; they are very indistinct and can only be seen in certain lights. On either side of them there are faint indications of other black spots, the remnants, as it were, of the transverse bands of the other forms. The under surface on its two posterior thirds, excluding the tail and anterior third of the body, is deep black, with a white longitudinal line along the keel of every alternate or third caudal, the angles of the intermediate ones being entirely black. SIMOTES BICATENATUS, Gthr. I. c. pp. 217, 218. Nineteen rows of scales. Loreal quadrangular, as high as broad. Two praeoculars, the uppermost much larger than the one below it, and widely separated from the vertical. Two postoculars. Seven or eight upper labials; in the former case the third and fourth entering the orbit, in the latter the fourth and fifth. Temporals 2 + 2, one in contact with the postoculars. Vertical broad, nearly as large as an occipital. Occipitals transversely truncated. Ventral shields distinctly keeled. Ventrals 169-173. Subcaudals 43-63. Colour light brown above, with three rather indistinct darker longitudinal lines, one along each side of the body on the third and fourth outer series of scales, and the other along the vertebral line. Head with the markings of the genus. Under surface yellowish, with faint indications in one specimen (Calcutta) of a brown spot near the lateral edge of each ventral, with a few brown scattered spots on the centre of the ventrals and subcaudals posteriorly. In another specimen (Garo Hills), agreeing with the former in all its structural details, the lateral spots on the ventrals are strongly marked on the two anterior thirds of the body, and on the posterior third they are so large and intense as to become confluent. Under surface of tail nearly immaculate. The only difference that I can detect between these specimens and Giinther's type of the species is the presence of two anterior tempo- |