( 218 ) 



or 'Necklace snake' by early writers, disputes with the cobra 

 the evil pre-eminence of being the most deadly snake in the 

 world. Its fangs, viewed only as mechanical weapons of offence, 

 are very formidable, and as many as five supplemental ones may 

 sometimes be counted behind the front one, all ready to supply 

 its loss, and become anchylosed in its place if broken away. 

 When, however, in addition to the wound these long tubular 

 fangs are capable of giving, the injection of the deadliest venom 

 is added, there is no snake perhaps in the world fitted to excite 

 greater horror than this. Its physiognomy is peculiarly repul- 

 sive, and from its sluggish habits, and its disinclination to move 

 out of the path on which it is coiled, on the approach of a man, 

 and the vigour and effect with which it resents being trodden 

 on, it is ever more dangerous than the gentler and more timid 

 or retiring cobra. Whoever has seen one of these animals coiled 

 up and slowly moving its coils one over another, but without 

 attempting to escape, will at once see the beauty of the simile 

 in the 22nd Book of Iliad, verse 93 (suggested no doubt from 

 the behaviour of a European member of the same famil}^), when 

 Hector waiting the approach of Achilles is likened to a venomous 

 snake roused and enraged by the approach of a man ; and having 

 once at Garden Reach nearly stepped on to a large Daboia, which 

 though roused and angry made no attempt to move away, I have 

 always very vividly realised the propriety of the above simile. 



EcHis, Merrem. 



Head covered with keeled scales. A pair of very small 

 frontals behind the rostral. Nostril small, round, situated in a 

 large nasal shield divided below. Scales imbricate, strongly 

 keeled in 25 to 29 rows. Subcaudals entire. 



E. carinata, Schn. 

 Colour brown. An undulating pale line down each side, 

 joined across the back by some pale dark-edged bars. Each 

 convex loop of the side line filled with a dark spot, and some 

 small dark spots along the abdomen. Crown of head dark, with 

 a pale central lozenge and a dark stripe from the eye to the 



