ON INDIAN SNAKES. BY EDWARD NICHOLSON, F.C.S., ARMY MEDICAL DEPARTMENT. HAVING been honoured by an invitation to speak before this Society on the subject of Indian snakes, I have thought that I could best utilise the time in which a short lecture can be given, by taking successively the various points on which I have observed erroneous ideas to be generally entertained, and, while correcting the popular errors, to establish a few of the most important facts relating to the natural history of this order of reptiles. I shall endeavour in each case to sift out the grains of truth from the proverbial pound of error. ERROR I.-All snakes are more or less venomous, and it is always well to kill a snake, as it may be a venomous one. Out of two hundred and sixty species of land snakes found in the large part of Asia known as the East Indies, there are forty which are more or less venomous, but not more than five which are dangerous to human life. Even these five may be further reduced, for one of them (the hamadryad, Ophiophagus elaps) is very rare, and another replaces a congener, the two being rarely found together; so that, practically, there are but three snakes the bite of which is dangerous to human life The Cobra The Bungarus The Daboia, or chain-viper Naga tripudians. The first of these, the cobra, is a very common snake throughout the East Indies, and it causes fully nineteen out of twenty accidents to man. This snake can be recognised at once, by its habit of raising its head and neck from the ground when menaced, and of standing at bay with the skin of its neck expanded into a broad oval disk, ornamented on the back by a black ocellus, or by a pair of ocelli united like eye-glasses. The bungarus of India (sometimes known as the krait) is generally found of much smaller dimensions than its full length of four feet. It is pure white beneath, jet black above, with narrow white arches, generally in pairs, extending across the back. Though very venomous, it is of gentle disposition, and does but little mischief compared to the cobra. The species of bungarus belonging to the Malayan fauna is very rare in India; it grows to a much larger size than the species just described, and it is known at once by the bands of alternate black and yellow which encircle it. The viper, Daboia elegans, or D. Russellii, known as the chain-viper, the cobra manilha, and in Ceylon as the tic polonga, is a sluggish snake, rarely found away from the seacoast. It is finely marked with three chains of black links extending down the back, and has the triangular head characteristic of the viperine and crotaline snakes. Though much less akin than the green tree-viper to the American Crotalidæ, it may yet be said to be the Indian representative of the rattlesnake. Its poison apparatus is very highly developed. In by far the greater part of India, the Daboia viper is all but absent, leaving, then, only two venomous snakes dangerous to man. The other venomous snakes, which are more common, yet not dangerous to man, are :— or less The tree-vipers, represented by the most common species, Trimesurus viridis. The echis viper, Echis carinata. The various species of Callophis. All these are of local occurrence, and decidedly rare. It is remarkable that the tree-vipers, which are very closely related to the American Crotalida (though quite destitute of any rattling candal appendage), have poison of very little power on even small animals. With regard to the harmless snakes, their distribution is so variable that it is by no means easy to select the list of common species. The commonest are Ptyas mucosus, grows to a large size, nine feet in length, and lives principally on rats. This snake and the cobra are of great use in keeping down the plague of rats in India. ERROR II.- Snakes are slimy, disgusting reptiles, which it is right to kill. The refutation of this error, though apparently easy, is in reality most difficult, for it attacks one of the most deepseated prejudices of civilised man. The error is a survival (though reversed) of the fetish period of human intellect; an iconoclastic revolt against the gods of primitive man, enabling us to indulge freely in the passion of destructiveness. The Anglo-Indian is unconscious of this subjective motive; the objective motive is disgust, and its effects exemplify admirably the remarks made on this emotion by * "The Mr. Bain, in his work on the Emotions and the Will. enunciation of disgust is a favourite exercise. * * The objects thus sought out need not offend the senses in any way; if they can only furnish a slight pretext for being nasty or unclean, it is enough for letting off the charged battery of the powerful organ of disgust. If any class of living beings should happen to provoke this outburst, terrible is their fate. No limits are set to the promptings for evil of this sentiment." In the present case, the excuse that snakes are slimy is contrary to fact; that they are nasty and disgusting is a prejudice conceived before the persons enouncing it ever saw a snake. Observation cannot rectify the error, for, as the late Sir Arthur Helps says (Friends in Council), "a good sound prejudice is not to be contradicted by mere eyesight and observation." ERROR III.-Snakes leave a trail behind them. The trail of the serpent has long formed a simile for the novelist. It is generally supposed that snakes leave a slimy trail, like that of a slug. But a snake is covered with a coat of scales as dry, clean, and polished as silver; whence the error? It doubtless arises, firstly, from the snake being considered as a sort of land-eel (anguille de bois, as the omnivorous French peasant calls it), and secondly, from the fact that snakes cast their epidermis at intervals of a few weeks, at least during their period of growth. The snake manages to stick the thin scarf-skin, loosened from his nose and chin, on to some convenient object, and then peels himself out, leaving the delicate film of skin inside out. This has the misfortune to be called a slough, and it may be called a trail (as it is left behind), but it is anything but slimy, except if left exposed to rain or to dew, when it would tend to dissolve and assume a glutinous consistence. Also, |