NOTES FROM THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 579 



inches in length, one would argue extraordinary power from 

 effects seen. A friend who had resided in India expressed 

 great astonishment on hearing it said that a cobra was 

 supposed to be more deadly than this one, known as the 

 'carpet viper' or the 'whip snake,' which, he said, could kill 

 a man in a half-hour, and that he had seen men thus die. 

 ' If a cobra bite you, you have at least four or five hours to 

 live,' he said ; 'but half an hour for the whip snake, and you 

 are a dead man.' The individual brought to the Gardens in 

 1875 died the day after it gave birth to three young ones. 

 While alive it ate nothing, and, as it was then thought, 

 because it had not its natural food. Dr. Giinther having 

 discovered nothing but scolopendrcB in the specimens which 

 he had examined. Now it would be interesting to discover 

 whether, as Aristotle affirmed, the bites of all venomous 

 animals are more pernicious if they have devoured each 

 other, or if snakes have devoured scorpions, and whether 

 the toxic powers of the little Echis are aggravated by the 

 venomous food it evidently prefers at home. ' In India is a 

 certain little serpent for the bite of which alone the natives 

 have no remedy,' said Aristotle ; and one can scarcely 

 err in deciding this to be the Echis, being not only the 

 smallest venomous snake there, but the only viper, except 

 Russell's viper, a much larger snake. 



Only twice could I observe the toxic effects of the Echis 

 carinata at present (1882) in the collection; both cases 

 being in hot weather. It has so far conformed to circum- 

 stances in England, as to consent to dine on small white 

 mice, failing scorpions. In the first case it struck the mouse 

 savagely as soon as it was dropped into the cage, and the 



