Page:The poisonous snakes of India. For the use of the officials and others residing in the Indian Empire (IA poisonoussnakeso01ewar).pdf/61



“The second upper labial forms the front of the pit. There are two small shields behind the nostril, sometimes a small azygos shield below this. The scales on the head are smooth, those on the body slightly carinated. There are twenty-three series. Ventrals 137-141; sub-caudals 41. The supra-ciliaries are very large. The coloration varies. In one specimen it is pale brown, with a vertebral row of large, square, dark brown blotches. Along the sides a row of small dark spots; a palo temple-streak. Belly dark mottled. The larger male specimen, which is also from Darjeeling, is of a dark brown or almost blackish-ash colour, with the rhomboid patches along the vertebre. There is a peculiar mark in the middle of the neck like a U, which is of a yellowish or whitish colour." (Fayrer.) It is found in the sub-Himalaya, the Darjeeling, Sikkim, Nepaul, and Khasya Hills; and in the Neilgherries and Anamally Mountains in Southern India.

"Mr. Theobald has named what he considers a new species after Dr. Anderson, the Curator of the Indian Museum. It is described in his 'Cataloguo of the Asiatic Society's (now Indian) Museum,' pp. 75 to 76. It has 25 rows of carinated scales, 182 ventrals, and 56 sub-caudals in one specimen, and 71 in the other. The second upper labial forms the anterior margin of the præ-orbital pit; supra-nasals separated by an azygos shield. The colour above and below is a uniform rich brown. Belly and sides marked conspicuously with white spots. Found in Assam. A second individual, named by Mr. Theobald in the same Catalogue as T. obscurus, has the back of a uniform brown, sides