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Show 1903.] SNAKES OF CHINA AND JAPAN. 97 touching the eye on one side in one specimen, and occasioned by a confluence between the first and second labials. Anterior cliin-shields in contact with four infralabials on both sides in three out of four specimens examined. 87. Naia tr ipud ians . Southern Asia from Transcaspia to China, Hainan, Hongkong (Hallow., Steindach., City Hall Mus.), Formosa, Chusan, Philippines.-In the Siccawei Museum I saw seven specimens, and in the Shanghai Museum three. There are fifteen in the City Hall Museum, of which eleven are from Hongkong, two from Hainan, and two from China. Of the ten specimens I examined three have scales in twenty-one rows in the middle of the body, and three in nineteen. In the remainder I have failed to record the number. Nine have more or less distinct (some very well defined) buff or pale yellowish cross-bands dorsally. These numbered from 13-21 on the body, and 5-8 on the tail. They involve one or two rows of scales along the length of the snake, and are most conspicuous in the posterior third or so of the body. The intervals involve from ten to twelve scales, and are sometimes separated from cross-bars by a blackish line. Hood marked with modified black ocellus. Belly yellow, with one or two plumbeous bands ventrally, or mottled to a variable extent with black. In one specimen the whole belly uniform black. One specimen is evidently a Sputatrix. This I found in the Siccawei Collection. Scales over hood 21, mid-body 17. Ventrals 177. Subcaudals 45. No hood-marks. Nearly uniform black dorsally, with no suspicion of cross-bars. One very broad plumbeous ventral band involves from the 9th to the 47th shield, and then breaks up into a mottling and disappears. 88. N a ia bungarus. Southern Asia from India to S. China, Hongkong (City Hall Mus.), Philippines.-A newly-hatched example is preserved in the City Hall Museum, habitat Hongkong. I found the head of a large specimen in the Shanghai Museum; and whilst I was in Hongkong a gentleman encountered one on the mainland opposite, which he killed and brought home. I examined and identified it, and estimated it at between seven and eight feet in length. 89. Callophis macclellandii. Nepal, Sikkim, Assam, Burma, S. China, Formosa. A m b l y c e p h a l i d ^e. 90. A mblycephalus moellendorffii. Tenasserim, Siam, Cochin China, S. China, Hongkong, Hainan.-This is a common snake in the island of Hongkong. I collected ten myself, all of which were found in low jungle on the slopes of the Peak. I saw three specimens in the City Hall Museum. Internasals form a suture with the loreal in all specimens. Postoculars and suboculars : usually one long semilunar shield extends from the supraoculars behind, skirting the eye to a point about halfway up its anterior aspect. Sometimes this scale is divided so as to form a small Proc. Zool. Soc.- 1903, Vol. I. No. VII. 7 |