The New International Encyclopædia/Diamond-snake

​DIAMOND-SNAKE (so called from the diamond-shaped marks on its skin). (1) An Australian python, or rock-snake (Python spilotis), which was long regarded as one of the two specis of the genus Morelia, the other being the so-called carpet-snake (Morelia variegata). The two are now considered varieties of a single highly variable species of true python, the richly colored variety called diamond-snake being especially abundant in Victoria, while the so-called carpet-snake is widely scattered throughout Australia. It is about six feet long, of rather heavy form, and inhabits nearly every region that offers shelter, though stony ridges supplied with trees and well watered seem to be its favorite haunt. Its food consists of small mammals, birds, and birds’ eggs and young, and it frequently raids the poultry yards of the farmers. Though able to bite severely when irritated, it is not poisonous. It makes a sort of nest of dry grass or other soft materials within a hollow log, or similar place, and lays its eggs in a pile, which it guards. The colors vary from glossy black, with bright yellow spots, one on each scale, and forming an arrangement of lozenge-shaped markings, with the abdomen yellow and black, as in the true diamond-snake, to the greenish, irregularly marked coloration of the ‘carpet’ variety.

(2) In Tasmania, a local venomous serpent (Holocephalus superbus). See Death-Adder.

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