NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST, 195 



less. That they were of the most deadly nature is 

 evident from his description ; for he says that they are 

 diminutive in size, with two horns that grow out of the 

 top of the head. This exactly describes the poisonous 

 cerastes, of which more anon. Herodotus goes on to 

 state, that when these serpents died they were buried in 

 the temple of Zeus; for, writes the Halicarnassian, they 

 say they are sacred to that god (Amnion).* The venom- 

 ous Naia Haje, El Haje, or Haje Nascher of the modern 

 Arabs, was chosen by the ancient Egyptians as the em- 

 blem of Cneph, the good deity (^ocifxcuv), and as the mark 

 of regal dignity. The front of the tiara of the majority 

 of the statues of the Egyptian deities and kings is adorned 

 with this serpent, and Denon's figure, with the fore-part 

 erect and the hood expanded, represents it nearly as it 

 appears on the sculptured stone. 



Its congener, the deadly Nag,t the cobra de capello of 

 the Asiatic Portuguese, is still worshipped in some of the 

 temples in India, where the Hindus believe that, in 

 sagacity and the malicious tenacity with which it trea- 

 sures up a wrong, it is not inferior to man. They have 

 been seen, upon a pipe being played to them, to come 

 forth from their holes in the sacred edifice, and feed 

 from the hand : and when the people behold this most 

 destructive serpent in so subdued and docile a state, 

 they believe that the god has entered into the form. 



The only modes by which such docility and harmless- 

 ness could be effected, without resorting to what are 

 usually termed supernatural means, are actual extraction 

 of the poison fangs and their glands; kindness, which, if 

 judiciously and perse veringly managed, will tame almost 

 every living creature ; the use of certain herbs by the 

 serpent-charmer; and lastly, an innate possession and 



* Euterpe, 74. t Naia tripudians. 



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