REPTILES AND SNAKE-STONES. 7 



are true natives no one will doubt ; but whether the 

 Green Lizard deserves a place in our Fauna is a 

 more open question, and is again referred to here- 

 after. The great Gravial of the Granges, sometimes 

 nearly eighteen feet long, the Crocodile of the Nile, 

 the Alligator of North America, and the Caymans of 

 the South, are the giants of this order; but of these 

 we have, happily, no representative. In neither of 

 the two orders named do any of its members possess 

 poison-bags or venomous fangs, though we happen 

 to know that it is a firmly- rooted opinion in India 

 that there is one or more species of lizard capable of 

 causing death by a wound, rendered mortal either 

 by a virulent saliva, or some other means. Such a 

 lizard, however, is entirely unknown to scientific 

 men, and by them the Bis-cobra is believed to be 

 only a phantom of " the heat-oppressed brain." A 

 surgeon, for many years on service in India, tells 

 us that he knew of an instance of a man descending 

 a well being bitten by such a lizard, that he was 

 drawn up and indicated the position of the reptile ; 

 that a second man descended and killed the bis- 

 cobra, which was afterwards preserved in spirits at 

 the barrack-hospital for many years, and, finally, 

 that the man who was bitten died in consequence in 

 a few hours. 



The third order includes all the snakes, from the 

 monstrous Boa constrictor and the dreadful Rattle- 



