Note 146 — Chapter XVIII

Dr. Gray, to whom I am indebted for the following information, assures me that this reptile is not specifically distinct from the common Cobra of India; though all the mountain specimens of it which he has examined retain the same small size and dark colour. Of the other Sikkim reptiles which I procured seven are Colubridæ and innocuous; five Crotalidæ are venomous, three of which are new species belonging to the genera Parias and Trimesurus. Lizards are not abundant, but I found at Choongtam a highly curious one, Plestiodon Sikkimensis, Gray; a kind of Skink, whose only allies are two North American congeners; and a species of Agama (a chameleon-like lizard) which in many important points more resembled an allied American genus than an Asiatic one. The common immense earth-worm of Sikkim, Ichthyophis glutinosus, is a native of the Khasia mountains, Singapore, Ceylon and Java. It is a most remarkable fact, that whereas seven out of the twelve Sikkim snakes are poisonous, the sixteen species I procured in the Khasia mountains are innocuous.