DR. T. CANTOR ON PELAGIC SERPENTS. 307 
able disposition than the greater number of terrestrial venomous serpents, and on the 
authority of several naturalists, has arrived at the erroneous conclusion, that these ani- 
mals are of a nature but little ferocious. An assertion like this, in a work devoted to 
the natural history of serpents, may easily mislead travellers, who, by carelessly hand- 
ling animals provided with weapons of the most dangerous description, are, if wounded, 
certain to pay with the loss of life for their temerity. I must therefore, from my own 
experience, assert that those species, which I have observed in the Bay of Bengal and 
the Gangetic estuaries, are of very ferocious habits, as well in as out of water. In the 
latter case they attempt to bite the nearest objects, nay, even like the vipers Najas 
and Bungari, turn round and wound their own bodies, from which I often found some 
difficulty in disengaging the fangs and teeth. When removed from the sea they become 
blinded, by the light contracting the pupil, which, in addition to the difficulty which 
they experience whilst attempting to support their sharply-keeled bodies on dry land, 
render then their movements just as uncertain and maladroit as they are nimble and 
swift in their own element. To corroborate the truth of my statement, I shall refer 
to the record in the Asiatic Researches, of a number of accidents at Madras, caused by 
the venom of pelagic serpents, and also to a later melancholy occurrence which took 
place in the latter part of 1837, on board of Her Majesty’s Brig Algerine, while in Ma- 
dras Roads, where the unfortunate victim expired within four hours of the infliction of 
the wound’. 
The breeding season of the Hydrophis schistosa and striata occurs in the months of 
February and March, during which period I observed numerous pairs, with their poste- - 
rior extremities twisted round each other, floating near the surface of the sea, each now 
and then making a slow undulating movement with the free anterior part of the body. 
The female is ovo-viviparous ; in H. gracilis Dr. Russell discovered by dissection nine 
young ones ; in a gravid H. schistosa I observed seven eggs, each containing a developed 
foetus, while eleven such were found by a gentleman in another, thrown on shore on the 
Tenasserim coast. 
The time of gestation I have not beén able to ascertain ; if that of the Homalopsis 
might serve as a guide, I should fix upon a period of about seven months. 
Dr. Russell has observed, that none of these serpents are able to live out of their ele- 
ment, either when confined in sea-water or in fresh. Such as I have kept in jars filled 
with salt water all died in the course of two or three days. They were in the habit of 
occupying the bottom, occasionally raising their head over the surface, to breathe, and 
would repeatedly throw out the tongue against the wall of the jar. 
From dissections, it would appear that the young serpents exclusively feed upon 
' This serpent, a six-feet long specimen of Hydrophis nigrocincta, Schlegel, has been deposited in the United 
Service Museum. 
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