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Show 62 REPTILIA. XENOPELTIS, Reinw. Large triangular and imbricated plates behind the eyes, becoming confounded with the succeeding ones, which merely decrease in size.(l) HETERonoN, Beauv. The usual plates of a Coluber, but the end of the muzzle is one single piece, short, and resembling in form a slightly elevated triedralpy ramid, one ridge being above; from which circumstance they have been called Hog-noses.(2) HuRRIA, Daud. Small Colubers of lndia, in which the plates on the base of the tail are always simple, and those on the point double; these anoma· lies, however, merit but little attention.(3) DrPsAs, Laurent.-BuNGAnus, Oppel. The body compressed, much narrower than the head; scales of the spinal range larger than the others, a circumstance which we shall find again in Bongarus. Such is the D. indica, Nob.; Colub. bucephalus, Sh.; Seb. I, xliii.( 4) Black, ringed with white. group belong the Col. cerberus, Daud., Russel, pl. xvii;-Homolnpais obtU~~atua, Reinw. and the neighbouring species. (1) Xenopeltis concolor, Heinw. (2) The Heterodcm rwirdtre, Beauv., Tteterodctn, Daud., and the Mteredon tachetl ( Cencltris mokescm, Daud.) belong to this genus; but Beauvois has established it on a character which is found in a great many Colubers, viz. that of the posterior max· illary teeth being the largest; and Daudin appears to have known his Mokesoo by a drawing'only, we mean the Hog-nose ofCatesby, II, pl.lvi, which Daud. himself has cited. A part of its tail-plates is sometimes entire; but at the base, and not near the point, as Daud. describes it. Linna:us had correctly indicated this Serpent in his tenth edition, under the name of Coluber constrictar: why he changed it in the twelfth to Boa contartrix, is not known. [N.B. The author in this note seems to have confounded three species of Serpents which are indubitably distinct-the Heterodon, the Trigonocephalus tisiplume or Mockasctn Snake and the Coluber constrictor or Black Snake. The Heterodon ~s a harmless anim'al, and has the plates on the top of the head arranged 3, 2, 3, 2. .!J.m. Ed.] (3) Hurrialt~ a barbarous name, taken from that which designates the specie~ Russ., XL, cop1ed Daud. V, xlvi, 2. Another, Merr. II, iv. (4) Dipsas, the Greek name of a Serpent whose bite was thought to cause a fatal thirst, from tl+c~-, thirst. The fig. of Conrad Gesner at the word Dipsm, is precisely of this subgenus. The Dip. indica is altoge;her different from the OPHIDIA. 63 DENDROPHis, Fitz.-AH<ETULLA, Gray. The scales of the spinal range larger, as in Dipsas, and those along the flanks narrower; but their head is not broader than the body, which is very long and slender: the muzzle obtuse.(l) DnYINus, Merr.-PAsSERITA, Gray. The body as long and slender as in the preceding subdivision; but there is a little slender and pointed appendage to the end of the muzzle.(2) • DRYOPHrs, Fitz. The same elongated form, the muzzle pointed, but no appendage; scales equal.(3) OuGonoN, Boie. Small Colubers, with a short, narrow, obtuse head, in which the palatine teeth are wanting. The various remaining subgenera which have been separated from that of Coluber, appear to us less worth retaining; they are founded upon slight variations in the proportions of the head, thickness of the trunk, &c. ( 4) After all these divisions, the Colubers are more numerous in species than any other genus of Serpents. Several are found in France, such as Col. natrix, L.; Coulevre a collier, Lac. II, vi, 2. (The Ringed Snake.) Cinereous, with black spots along the flanks, and three white ones on the neck, forming a collar; scales carinate, that is ridged. Very common in meadows and stagnant Vipera atrax, Mus. Ad. Fred. XXII, 2, with which Linna:us, Laurentini and Daudin have confounded it. (1) Col. ahretulla;-Col. decarus, Shaw;-Col. caracaras, Id., (Bungarus filiformis, Oppel.) to which I add the SIDON, Fitz.; at least in the Col. catenulatus, Russ. pl. xv, the dorsal scales are rhomboidal and larger, as in the altretulla. (2) Col. nasutus, Russ. Serp. pl. xii and xiii. (3) Col.fulgidus, Daud., VI, lux, Seb., IT, liii, 9;-Dryinus ameus, Spix, III. (4) By this I particularly mean the TYRIA, MALPOLoN, PsAMMOl'Kis, ConONELLA, XENODON and PsEUDOELAPS of Fitzinger. At most, we could only adopt his DunER· nu, where the head is short, obtuse, and on one uniform line with the body as in ELAPs; and his Ho:ru:r.orsxs, in which the eyes are rather more vertical than in the other Colubers. I have separated CERBERus. Laurentini had previously endeavoured to divide the Colubers into CoLunEn and ConoNELLA; the latter were those in which the scales on the sides of the temporal plates are large enough to be counted as so many plates more; but the transitions from one group to another are almost insensible. \ |