H2 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY ISOCIETY, Vol. XIX. 



into a heap and remain stationary ; and if worried will hide its 

 head beneath its coils. Often too while lying thus it fixes its coils 

 rigidly so that one can toss it into the air without it releasing its 

 folds, as one might do a piece of knotted cane. A visit paid to 

 such a specimen in its cage an hour or so later will probably 

 show its courage restored, and it will inflict or endeavour to inflict 

 a wound. Like most other snakes however it soon gets accustomed 

 to being handled and will then suffer itself to be withdrawn from 

 its cage without anger though it usually struggles to elude one's 

 grasp. Mr. F. Gleadow tells me he "saw one in a climber in his 

 verandah one night, and while examining him to see whether it 

 was a Lycodon or a Bungarus with the aid of a hurricane lamp, 

 he let out at me like lightning, and scratched my nose. It was a 

 very smart stroke indeed. Nobody had touched him." Gunther* 

 says of it : " It is of fierce habits aad defends itself vigorously." 

 Mr. Millard writes to me: " It is of a somewhat fierce disposition, 

 and when first caught will usually turn and bite freely. " Colonel 

 Dawson too in a letter to me remarks on the fierceness of its nature. 



Mice not infrequently fall victims to this snake, a fact which in itself 

 speaks more eloquently than any remarks can do for the intrepid 

 nature of such a diminutive reptile. Mice or at least individuals 

 amongst them are most formidable antagonists for small creatures 

 to encounter and I have collected several interesting records 

 showing that a single one will not only defend itself against the 

 snake or snakes into whose cage it has been put as food, but will 

 sometimes actually turn the tables, fight, overpower, and devour 

 the snake. 



There is no doubt that this snake is responsible for a large number 

 of cases of snake bite in India every year, a circumstance to which its 

 commonness, courage, irascibility, nocturnal habits, and predilection 

 for man's environment all contribute. 



As the snake is nearly always pronounced a krait by Europeans 

 and natives alike it is one of those snakes which has helped most to 

 swell the list of reputed antidotes to snake poison, for anything 

 given internally, or applied locally under the circumstances gets the 

 credit of having averted the otherwise supposed inevitable fatality. 



• Kept. Brit. Ind., 1864, p. 31G. 



