Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.20871

    Jerdon's sea snake

    Date
    1872
    Creator
    Nityanunda Dey (Indian) , Artist
    Creator - Organisation
    M & N Hanhart, Lithographer
    Object type
    Library reference
    38927
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (page): 455mm
    width (page): 330mm
    Subject
    Biology
       > Natural history
    Biology
       > Zoology
          > Herpetology
    Content object
    nature
       > animal
          > snake
    Description
    Herpetological study of a Jerdon’s sea snake, Hydrophis jerdonii or Distira jerdonii, here referred to as the former. Viewed from above, with full body depicted, and three sketched details, showing scalation of the body and head, and the specimen’s head in profile, with mouth open.

    Inscribed: HYDROPHS JERDONNII./ From Nature. Ind. Mus. Plate 20./ Length including tail 3’/ Tail 3 ½”/ Girth of body 2”/ Drawn by Nityanunda Dey. Student. M & N HANHART CHROMO LITH. Govt. Sch. of Art, Calcutta.’

    Written in associated description: ‘A series of seven simple teeth behind the grooved fang in front. Trunk width from thirty-four to thirty-eight black cross bands, broadest on the back and extending to the belly in the young and half-grown specimens.’

    Plate 20 from Joseph Fayrer’s The Thanatophidia of India; being a description of the venomous snakes of the Indian Peninsula, with an account of the influence of their poison on life, and a series of experiments (London, 1872). A study of various Indian snake species and how to treat their bites. Complete with colour illustrations to aid classification and identification created by students of the Kolkata School of Art. Published by the colonial government.

    Nityanunda Dey, student at the Government School of Art, Kolkata.

    Sir Joseph Fayrer, first baronet, (1824-1907), surgeon and author, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1877. Fayrer worked in colonial India between 1850 and 1872 and is best known for The Thanatophidia of India.
    Object history
    This volume was presented to the Royal Society on 27 July 1872 with an accompanying letter from the author [‘May I beg the Royal Society’s acceptance of a copy of my work on the Poisonous Snakes of India’].
    Related fellows
    Joseph Fayrer (1824 - 1907, British) , Surgeon
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Asia
          > India
    Powered by CollectionsIndex+/CollectionsOnline