The Ophidian Genus “Simotes”

Abstract

MY attention has just been drawn to a note by Mr. H. O. Forbes, published under the heading “The Genus Simotes of Snakes,” in NATURE, vol. xxviii. p. 539, in which he states that, when describing a new species of Simotes discovered by him in Timor-Laut (P.Z.S. 1883) and which I observed was the first of the genus known to occur eastward of Java, I overlooked Krefft's Simotes aastralis from Port Curtis, described in P.Z.S. 1864. It is a well known fact, pointed out by Dr. Günther in 1865 (Zool. Rec. i.) and since admitted by Krefft himself (“The Snakes of Australia”), that Simotes australis is not a species of that innocuous genus, but belongs to a widely different family of poisonous snakes and to the genus Brachyurophis.