ON SERPENT-WORSHIP AND VENOMOUS SNAKES. 107 



the Greek mythology it was so abundant that you cannot go into the 

 British Museum and see a model of a deity without finding the 

 emblem of the serpent. In days far off they kept living serpents 

 in their temples where they wei*e fed, reminding one of the old 

 story of Eden, not that the serpent is there represented as taking 

 food, but still something that is akin to it. It was said that in 

 Egypt there was very little evidence of serpents being treated 

 with greater honour than any other animal, and yet I do not think 

 you will find an Egyptian temple (generally speaking, at all 

 events), without a serpent, very like a cobra, in the height of 

 exaltation. It struck me as very remarkable, on going through 

 and examining the churches of the Pyrenees, in which they had 

 done away with many of the symbolical carvings, to see the exal- 

 tation of the serpent about the cross. In a work I once came 

 across in the library of Edinburgh University, I found evidence 

 given of the prevalence of serpent mounds and worship in Europe, 

 and in the Pyrenees there are those serpent mounds and they have 

 been in all cases Christianised, if I may say so ; e.g., a church has 

 been built on them and there is generally a cross. One has been 

 carefully excavated and interesting remains have been found of 

 the earliest and rudest form, which are now in a local museum. 

 Up to the present day in the Pyrenees there is practised an extra- 

 ordinary religious ceremony of burning living serpents on a 

 particular day, attended by a procession with chanting. Serpent 

 mounds exist in the British Isles, in America, Spain, France, 

 Egypt, etc. 



Major-General Sir Richard Pollock, K.C.S.I. — I should like to 

 ask one question that interests me, as an old judge and magistrate 

 in India. It used to be asserted that some of the cases (a small 

 proportion) that were attributed to snake bites were caused by 

 other poisons criminally administered. People came forward say- 

 ing death resulted from snake -bite, and I should like to know if it 

 is easy to ascertain the difference between the virulent poison of a 

 snake and other poisons used in India, and whether you could 

 suggest any improvement in regard to checking or detecting such 

 malpractices as I have alluded to. 



Surgeon- General W. B. Beatson, M.D. — Sir Joseph Fayrer, having 

 mentioned my name and pointed to the portrait of a snake that I 

 had the good fortune to send him from Nagpore, I will say a few 

 words, principally to relieve the minds of many people who may 



