The Zoologist — September, 1869. 1819 



for sowl or murrell fish, as they are called on the Bombay side, my 

 bait, a fish about three inches long, was twice taken by black snakes 

 having the same appearance ; but I did not succeed in landing either, 

 as they were not fairly hooked." — Lindsay F. Dickson, Assistant- 

 Surgeon ; Meywar Bheel Corps, Kherwarrah Rajpooianah, 2ncl 

 January, 1867. 



This interesting letter called forth the following : — 

 *' Sir, — I am happy to be able to record, for the information of 

 Mr. L. F. Dickson, the following additional information respecting 

 the curious instinctire habit of a cobra, to which I was an eye-witness. 

 " When residing in Bengal, in the vicinity of Calcutta, 1 observed 

 near a tank in an extensive paddy-field called Nello, now in the juris- 

 diction of the Howrah Zilla, a black snake catching hold of a snail 

 with its mouth and striking it hard against another, thus anatomizing 

 its victims completely and devouring the contents of the shells. The 

 reptile is hence called in Bengal " Gaun bhanga kaota" (snail-break- 

 ing black snake). It is very veneraous and is characterized for its 

 great fury against man and beast, so much so that it would sometimes 

 attack from a safe distance an innocent passer-by, even without any 

 symptoms of aggression :* it generally moves about (in Bengal) at 

 night in the hot season, and has sometimes a large diamond." — 

 Raj Chandra Sandel ; Benares, I5th January, 1869. 



I will now give one cutting from a paper, out of many, r-elative to 

 cobra bites in Bengal : it is from the ' Bengali!,' a native paper pub- 

 lished in English, under date April 13, 1867 : — 



" A contemporary gives the following account of the case of a 

 woman who had been bitten by a cobra. A grown-up woman, of the 

 jula caste, passing by a drain or khal with a basket full of fishes upon 

 her head, all of a sudden fell senseless on the ground, and strange to 

 say immediately collapsed : instantaneous measures were adopted by 

 the doctors (of whom there were more than one I believe), and other 

 gentlemen present, to bring her to her senses, but to no effect, the 

 disease not being at that time recognized. Just at this time the 

 village chowkedar (watchman), who happened to pass by that way, 

 examined her, jumped into the khal (drain), brought some leaves from 



♦Speaking of the Jaracara serpent, Mr. Bates says— " In conversing on the 

 subject of Jaracaras as we walked onwards, every one of the party was ready to swear 

 that this snake attacks naan without provocation, leaping towards him from a consider- 

 able distance when be approaches." — ' Amazons,' cap. xi., p. 379. 



