CHAP. III.] 



SNAKES. 



191 



period of breeding, it may be mentioned that the identical 

 tortoise is believed to return again and again to the 

 same spot, notwithstanding that at each visit she may have 

 to undergo a repetition of this torture. In the year 1826, 

 a hawksbill turtle was taken near Hambangtotte, which 

 bore a ring attached to one of its fins that had been 

 placed there by a Dutch officer thirty years before, with 

 a view to establish the fact of these recurring visits to the 

 same beach. 1 * 



Snakes. It is perhaps owing to the aversion excited 

 by the ferocious expression and unusual action of 

 serpents, combined with an instinctive dread of attack, 

 that exaggerated ideas prevail both as to their numbers 

 in Ceylon, and the danger to be apprehended from en- 

 countering them. The Singhalese profess to distinguish 

 a great many kinds, of which not more than one half 

 have as yet been scientifically identified; but so cau- 

 tiously do serpents make their appearance, that the 

 surprise of long residents is invariably expressed at 

 the rarity with which they are to be seen ; and from 

 my own journeys, through the jungle, often of two to 

 five hundred miles, I have frequently returned with- 

 out seeing a single snake. 2 Davy, whose attention was 

 carefully directed to the poisonous serpents of Ceylon 3 , 

 came to the conclusion that but four, out of twenty 

 species examined by him, were venomous, and that 

 of these only two (the tic-polonga 4 and cobra de 

 capello 5 ) were capable of inflicting a wound likely to 

 be fatal to man. The third is the carawilla 6 , a 

 brown snake of about twelve inches in length ; and 

 for the fourth, of which only a few specimens have 

 been procured, the Singhalese have no name in their 



1 BENNETT'S Ceylon, ch. xxxiv. 



2 Mr. Bennett, who resided much 

 in the south-east of the island, as- 

 cribes the rarity of serpents in 

 the jungle to the abundance of the 

 wild peafowl, whose partiality to 



snakes renders them the chief de- 

 stroyers of these reptiles. 



3 See DAVY'S Ceylon, ch. xiv. 



4 Daboia elegans, Daud. 



5 Naja tripudians, Merr. 



6 Tngonocephalus hypnale, Merr. 



