THE PRINCIPAL SPECIES OF POISONOUS SNAKES 63 
nostril between two nasal shields and an internasal. Body cylin- 
drical; scales oblique, keeled, in 19 rows; ventrals rounded. Tail 
moderate ; subcaudal scales in 2 rows. 
S. hemachates (The Spitting Snake, or Ring Hals Slang).—This 
snake, which is about 700 millimetres in length, is of a bluish- 
brown colour, with numerous narrow, undulating and denticulate 
cross-bands of yellow or yellowish-white. The throat is black or 
dark red; the belly grey. 
It is met with throughout West, Kast, and South Africa, as far 
as the Cape of Good Hope, where it is very common. It lives 
among bushes in sandy places, where the ground is full of the holes 
of rats, moles, and small rodents, upon which it feeds. It is very 
active and exhibits great ferocity. 
Natives at the Cape declare that this snake is able to project its 
venom to a distance of more than a yard, especially if the wind is 
blowing in the same direction, and that, if the poison happens to 
enter the eye, the inflammation that results therefrom often leads 
to loss of sight (Smith). 
As to this, a very definite statement is given by Bavay,! on the 
authority of Le Naour :— 
‘While hunting in Dahomey,’ wrote Le Naour to Bavay, 
‘TI thrice met with the snake called the Spitter. On two occa- 
sions my dog was struck in both eyes by the liquid projected 
by the reptile. Immediately (less than two minutes afterwards), 
symptoms of conjunctivitis manifested themselves, with consider- 
able swelling of the pupils; the conjunctivitis seemed as though 
it were going to be very serious, and yielded only after twelve 
' “Le serpent cracheur de la côte occidentale d’Afrique,” Société Zool. 
de France, 1895, p. 210. Bavay thinks that the Spitting Snake is a Naja haje, 
but the description that he gives of the head of the reptile, which was sent 
to him by Le Naour, certainly agrees with the characters of Sepedon. Moreover, 
I have satisfied myself that the many specimens of Naja haje that I have kept 
in captivity in my laboratory never possessed the faculty of spitting their poison 
to a distance. 
