DIPSAS. Eudipsas cynodon. 



BANDED BDNGARUS. Bunganu fasci&tus. 



and is found in the Philippines. The name Dipsas is derived from a Greek word, signifying 

 thirst, and is given to this snake because the ancients believed that it was eternally 

 drinking water and eternally thirsty, and that to allay in some degree the raging drought, 

 it lay coiled in the scanty springs that rendered the deserts passable. As they considered 

 almost all Serpents to be venomous, and, according to the custom of human nature, feared 

 most the creatures of which they knew least, they fancied that the waters were poisoned 

 by the presence of this dreaded Snake. Lucan, in the Pharsalia, alludes to this idea : 



" And now with fiercer heat the desert glows, 

 And mid-day gloamings aggravate their woes ; 

 When lo ! a spring amid the sandy plain 

 Shows its clear mouth to cheer the fainting train. 

 But round the guarded brink, in thick array 

 Dire aspics rolled their congregated way, 

 And thirsting in the midst the horrid Dipsas lay. 

 Blank horror seized their veins, and at the view, 

 Back from the fount the troops recoiling flew." 



The ancient writers also averred that the bite of the Dipsas inoculated the sufferer with 

 its own insatiate thirst, so that the victim either died miserably from drought, or killed 

 himself by continually drinking water. 



The colours of the Dipsas are not brilliant, but are soft and pleasing. The general tint 

 is grey, banded with brown of different shades., sometimes deepening into black. The top 

 of the head is variegated with brown, and a dark streak runs from the eye to the corner of 

 the mouth. 



