_Our_ _Curucucu_, then, _Lachesis_ or _Crotalus mutus_, has the flat, viperine head, covered with fine scales. The only plates are the upper and lower labials, one over the eye, and a pair of rather large ones under the chin. The ‘pit’ is very distinct, showing it to be a _Bothrops_ and one of the _Crotalidæ_. The body colour is of a pale maize, approaching umber towards the back, and lighter on the belly, with a chain of rich chocolate-brown, jagged, rhomboid spots, edged with darker tints, along the back. It is undeniably handsome, and in life no doubt was iridescent, but alas for the ‘rainbow splendours,’ they have vanished! In length it is about nine feet, and in girth as big as one’s arm in the largest part. Its tail tapers suddenly. One sees in the strongly-keeled scales the ‘prominences’ alluded to by Dr. Wucherer; and as the fangs are represented life-size on p. 360, the reader can judge for himself about the ‘four-inch nails.’ Mine is probably a nearly full-grown serpent, therefore an average-size specimen, and much the same as the one brought to the Gardens in the summer of 1881, which lingered a pitiable object for six or eight months, eating nothing, and gradually wasting. The _Jararaca_ is a slighter snake, and in colour of an olive tint with darker markings, not unlike Xenodon’s jagged leaf pattern along the back. Its right to the name of _Craspedocephalus_ (_craspedo_, derived from a Greek word signifying an edge or border) is recognised by a peculiar ridge round its flat, angular, and almost lance-shaped head. It is also a _Trigonocephalus_ and a _Bothrops_. My specimen being only half-grown is about three feet long, and the thickness of your little finger. ‘Is there not great confusion in the application of the terms _craspedoceph._ and _trigonoceph._?’ wrote Dr. Stradling, on sending me these much-prized specimens. Yes, there certainly is; but by this time the reader sees the reason for this, and also for the many appellatives which they derive from the Fates and the Furies. Not to weary the reader with further lists of names, I will refer him to Gray’s _Catalogue of the British Museum Snakes_, p. 5, for _the_ accepted _Jararaca_ of the authorities, and to Dumeril, tome vii. pt. ii. p. 1509, for the same; both authors giving the numerous synonyms, and the latter the reasons for many of them. The student will there see how Wagler is supposed to have described young snakes as different species; and if further investigation be invited, a good deal of entertainment may be had from Wagler himself and his folio volume,[128] _Serpentum Braziliensis_, with its wonderful coloured illustrations. Then for the _Curucucu_, the _Lachesis mutus_ of modern ophiologists, see p. 13 of Gray, and p. 1486, tome vii. pt. ii. of Dumeril et Bibron. From these authors we may go back to Marcgrave, 1648, for the ‘_Cvrvcvcv Braziliensibus_, fifteen palms long, truculent and much to be feared.’