‘I fear we shall never get a decent classification till some competent observer studies them on their native soil; the excellence of the books on Indian reptiles is doubtless due to this. We want a man in authority to settle the very vernacular for us—one who can say, “This and no other shall be the Jarraracca, this the Bushmaster,” etc., for it is undoubtedly a great advantage to have a well-defined native or local synonym. The marvel is that the present classification should be so good as it is. Look at the difficulties. When people see a snake they rush at it, smash it with sticks or stones, pick up what is left of it and put it in a bottle of cauha, cachasse, rum, or other coarse spirit, label it with a wrong name, and send it home. And these are the materials an ophiologist has to build on.’[127] Krefft, speaking of the confusion of vernaculars in Australia, also says: ‘To make a work on ophiology useful to all, _co-operation is necessary_; and as a good, sound English name is prefixed to every species, it is to be hoped that such name will, if possible, be retained.’ He is referring more particularly to the ‘Diamond snake,’ which on the mainland is the harmless _Python molurus_, and in Tasmania the venomous _Hoplocephalus superbus_, with very broad scales. Therefore he ‘hopes that Tasmanian friends will accept the designation “Broad-scaled snake” in lieu of “Diamond” for their poisonous species.’ In the accounts sent to England, the indiscriminate use of such prefixes as the _black_ snake, the _brown_ snake, causes infinite perplexity, and not unfrequently furnishes argumentative articles to the journals. ‘Carpet’ snake is another vernacular applied to a harmless species in Australia, and to the extremely venomous little _Echis_ of India. Then every country has its ‘Deaf adder’ which is neither an ‘adder’ nor ‘deaf.’ And the ‘moccasin’ of the United States is a still existing stumbling-block. Another great confusion in classification has been in consequence of some of the earlier naturalists representing young snakes, or those of varying colours, as distinct species. It is very common for a young snake to differ in colour from the parent, and also common for those of the same brood to differ from each other. Of _Coluber canis_ Dr. A. Smith says scarcely any two are marked and coloured alike. In a brood of the broad-scaled Tasmanian snake, _H. superbus_, there were upwards of thirty young ones, some of which Krefft describes as banded, and of a light colour, the rest being black. Our English slow-worm varies from dead black to nearly white, or flesh colour, one of the latter being an inmate of the Gardens at the time of writing, March 1882. The English viper also varies in colour, and we have heard of a perfectly yellow ring snake.