THE PELAGIC OR SEA SNAKES. 245 



as a positive fact, while yet in part it is corroborated by 

 Cantor, who tells us that the young sea snakes feed on soft- 

 shelled molluscs ; we may argue, therefore, that the mother 

 snakes come into shallow water to give birth to their young, 

 where small fish and suitable food may abound. Aristotle 

 was evidently aware of the distinctions between fresh and 

 salt water snakes, and gives us the former as frequenting 

 rivers (' potable waters '). 



The Greek mariners who frequented the tropical seas 

 knew of the poisonous snakes with wholesome dread. Sir 

 Emerson Tennant tells us that the fishermen on the west 

 coast of Ceylon are still in perpetual fear of them. They 

 say there are some with the head hooded like the cobra, 

 that coil themselves up like serpents on land, not only 

 biting with their teeth, but 'crushing their prey in their 

 coils.' 



The * hood ' part of the story is not borne out by any 

 scientific writer ; and as for the ' crushing in coils,' the 

 sailors may possibly mistake the prehensile actions of hold- 

 ing on — even to a large fish — possibly for the action of 

 crushing in the way of constricting. In self-protection, or 

 for safety, venomous serpents do entwine themselves pretty 

 tightly round an object sometimes. An instance of this was 

 just now given. But constricting for the purpose of killing 

 is happily confined to the non-venomous families. It would 

 indeed be terrible if the 'giants of the waters' could both con- 

 strict and bite with poison fang ; and of this a word or two 

 will be said in the following chapter. Admittedly but little 

 has been accurately ascertained about the marine serpents 

 in comparison with the terrestrial ones. And there really 



