Of those known in South Africa as ‘water snakes,’ one is _Avusamans_ vernacularly, a black one and common, and another, _Iffulu_, of a beautiful bright green. Mr. Woodward, whose scientific egg-sucker has been already mentioned in chap. iii., states that both these are poisonous, that he never saw the green one out of water, and that it is unsafe to bathe where they are. On referring to Dr. Andrew Smith’s _Zoology of South Africa_, I am not able to identify these with certainty, and do not, therefore, give the above as scientific information. But before concluding this part of the subject, I would add a word or two on the importance of an accurate description of the snake, as far as possible, when one is found in some unusual situation; because a snake being found in the water is no proof that it is a water snake, or even that it was there by choice. Livingstone, in his _Expedition to the Zambesi_, p. 150, describes the number of venomous creatures, such as scorpions, centipedes, etc., that were found on board, ‘having been brought into the ship with wood.’ ‘Snakes also came sometimes with the wood, but oftener floated down the river to us, climbing easily by the chain cable. Some poisonous ones were caught in the cabin. A green one was there several weeks, hiding in the daytime.’ Often in newspapers are stories of ‘sea snakes’ as having appeared quite out of their geographical range. These on investigation may reasonably be traced to land snakes which have been carried out by the tidal rivers. In _Land and Water_ of Jan. 5, 1878, was such a story. Again, March 31, the following year, a correspondent, ‘J. J. A.,’ on ‘Animal Life in New Caledonia,’ stated that the sea inside the reefs is sometimes covered with both dead and living creatures carried out by the violence of the currents after heavy rains. ‘The flooded rivers rush with great force from the mountains,’ and numbers of reptiles were among the victims of that force. He saw ‘incredible numbers of snakes,’ and described the common sea snakes as ‘stupid, fearless things, that will not get out of your way.... The small sand-islands are literally alive with them.’ The writer made no pretensions to be a naturalist, or to state confidently what the snakes were specifically. New Caledonia would seem to be rather beyond the range of sea snakes proper, and those ‘incredible numbers’ may have been only land snakes involuntarily taking a sea bath, or certain species frequenting brackish waters, like those in South Carolina described by Lawson.