70 REPTILIA. 



Next come those Vipers in which the head is furnished with plates 

 almost like that of the Colubers. 



Of this number some are so exactly similar to the most common 

 Vipers, that there is nothing but these plates to distinguish them.(l) 

 Such is 



Col. hsemachates, L.j Seb. II, Iviii, 1, 3. Reddish brown mar- 

 bled with whiter muzzle obliquely truncated beneath. From the 

 Cape. 



Naia. 



Vipers with the head furnished with plates, and the anterior ribs 

 susceptible of being raised up and drawn forwards, so as to dilate 

 that part of the trunk into a disc more or less broad. The most 

 celebrated species is the 



Col. naiUf L.j Naia tripudians, Merr.; Serpent d lunettes, or 

 Cobra capello of the Portuguese in India; Seb. II, 85, i, 89, 1 4, 

 &c.; Lacep. II, iii, 1, so called from a black line resembling the 

 figure of a pair of spectacles traced on the widened portion of 

 its disc. It is extremely poisonous, but it is said that the root 

 of the Orphiorhyza mungos is a sure antidote against the effects 

 of its bite. The jugglers of India tame and teach it to dance, 

 having previously extracted the fangs. The same use is made 

 of another species in Egypt, the 



Col. haje, L.; L'Haje, Geoffr., Egypt. Rept. pi. vii; and Sa- 

 vign. Id. Suppl. pi. iii, whose neck is not so wide, and which is 

 greenish bordered with brownish. The jugglers of that coun- 

 try, by pressing on the nape of the neck with their finger, throw 

 it into a kind of catalepsy which renders it stiff and immovable, 

 or turn it into a rod, as they term it. Its habit of raising itself 

 up when approached, induced the ancient Egyptians to believe 

 that it was the guardian of the fields it inhabited. They made it 

 the emblem of the protecting divinity of the world and sculptured 

 it on each side of a globe upon the gates of their temples. It is 

 indubitably the serpent described by the ancients under the 

 name of the sp of Egypt, Asp of Cleopatra, 8cc. 



(1) Merrem has formed his genus Sepedon from this subdivision. Add, Col. v. 

 nigrum, Scheuchz., Phys. Sacr., IV, dccxvii. 



N.B. The Ophis, Spix, Serp. XVII, must be a venomous serpent, similar to 

 these Sepedons, but one whose poison fangs are preceded by some small simple 

 teeth. Not having seen his species, I fear it is one of those Colubers with large 

 posterior maxillary teeth before mentioned, several of which are at least liable 

 to the suspicion of being poisonous. 



