Page:The poisonous snakes of India. For the use of the officials and others residing in the Indian Empire (IA poisonoussnakeso01ewar).pdf/32

 14 OPHIOPHAGUS.

The first variety is found in Bengal, Assam, the Malayan Peninsula, and Southern India (Fayrer); the second in Bengal (Fayrer); in the Philippine Islands and perhaps in Burmah (Günther); and the third is found in Borneo (Fayrer).

Günther says, “ Young specimens have a much more varied coloration; they are black, with numerous white, equidistant, narrow cross- bands, descending obliquely backwards; lead with four white cross-bands; one occupies the extremity of the snout, the second across the posterior frontals, the third across the crown of the head, behind the orbit; the fourth across the occiput to the angle of the mouth; the two latter bands are composed of oval spots. In a specimen from the Anamallay Mountains the belly is black, and the white bands extend across, being wider than on the back; in a second specimen, of which the locality is unknown, the belly is white, each ventral having a blackish margin."

Though this genus lias a wide distribution, it is not frequently met with. It is said to be found in the Andaman and Philippine Islands, Java, Sumatra, Borneo (Günther), and in New Guinea (Dumbril), Cuttack, in Bengal (Beddome), Rangoon (Fayrer). It is found in the Sunderbunds, and around Calcutta.

It is, perhaps, the most aggressive of all the Indian Thanatophidia. All the best authorities agree on this point. But it is nevertheless manageable in captivity. As its name implies, it lives, doubtless, as much as practicable, upon snakes.

For the purposes which this work is intended to subserve, it may be regarded that, with few exceptions, all hooded snakes are poisonous. Sir Joseph Fayrer has noted the dilatable neck "in Compsosoma radiatum, an innocent snake, the neck and much of the whole body dilates vertically when it is excited and about to strike, presenting a very remarkable appearance ;" also " in the Tropidonotus macrophthalmus, an innocent snake, which attains a length of thirty-nine inches, according to Günther, and is found in Khasya and Sikkim 11р 4000 feet. It is known by its large eye and dilatable neck" (Fayrer); the scales, Günther says, "show an arrangement very similar to that of thie cobra, for which it is frequently taken. All the specimens I have seen show unmistakable signs that their captors considered it best to