. Sketches of the natural history of Ceylon : with narratives and anecdotes illustrative of the habits and instincts of the mammalia, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, &c. : including a monograph of the elephant and a description of the modes of capturing and training it with engravings from original drawings . fallacy. The familyof false snakes (pseudo typhlops, as Schlegel namesthe group) have till lately consisted of but three species,of which only one was known to inhabit Ceylon. Theybelong to a family intermediate between the serpentsand that Saurian group commonly called Sloiu-worms orGl
. Sketches of the natural history of Ceylon : with narratives and anecdotes illustrative of the habits and instincts of the mammalia, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, &c. : including a monograph of the elephant and a description of the modes of capturing and training it with engravings from original drawings . fallacy. The familyof false snakes (pseudo typhlops, as Schlegel namesthe group) have till lately consisted of but three species,of which only one was known to inhabit Ceylon. Theybelong to a family intermediate between the serpentsand that Saurian group commonly called Sloiu-worms orGlass-snakes; they in fact represent the slow-worms ofthe temperate regions in Ceylon. They have the bodyof a snake, but the cleft of their mouth is very narrow,and they are unable to detach the lateral parts of thelower jaw from each other, as the true snakes do whendevouring a prey. The most striking character of thegroup, however, is the size and form of the tail; thisis very short, and according to the observations of 302 REPTILES. [Chap. IX. Professor Peters of Berlin, shorter in the female thanin the male. It does not terminate in a point as inother snakes, but is truncated obliquely, the abruptsurface of its extremity being either entirely flat, ormore or less convex, and always covered with rough. THE UR0PELT18 PHILIPPINUS, keels. The reptile assists its own movements by press-ing the rough end to the ground, and from this peculiarform of the tail, the family has received the name of Uro-peltidce, or Shield-tails. Within a very recent periodimportant additions have been made to this family,which now consists of four genera and eleven occurring in Ceylon are enumerated in the List Peters, Be Serpentum familia TJropeltaceorum. Berol. 4. 1861. Chap. IX.] SNAKES. 303 appended to this chapter. One of these, the Uropeltisgrandis of Kelaart *, is distinguished by its dark browncolour, shot mth a bluish metallic lustre, closely ap-proaching the ordinary shade of the
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