1898 The Zoologist— November, 1869. 



Amongst the antidotes — or, at least, those reputed to be such — is 

 the plant called by the natives in the N.W. Provinces, the nervissa 

 {Aristolachia Indica), This plant grows as a creeper, and the patient 

 is made to chew the leaves, from which also a decoction is made and 

 administered : I grew the plant atManipuri, and tried its efficacy, but 

 without avail. 



A friend of mine writes me that he grew it at Multan, and that a 

 man, whom he made chew the leaves after having been bitten by a 

 cobra, came round ; but then, he added significantly, " he must admit 

 he also gave him eau-de-luce ;" and thus it is, it appears to me, in 

 many of the cures the reputed antidotes have been supplemented by 

 stimulant treatment and constant exercising of the patient, by which 

 latter methods alone the man has been cured. 



In order to show the English reader what snakes we commonly 

 meet with in India, as also that the Government does its best to inform 

 its dependents, I will here quote a list of the venomous snakes as 

 found in the Punjab, from the 'Punjab Government Gazette.' I am 

 not aware that any such list has been published in the three Presi- 

 dencies : the matter has evidently been taken from Dr. Guuther's 

 work on the Indian Snakes : — 



" The first mentioned belong to what arc called Colubrine Snakes, 

 having the general form and appearance of ordinary harmless snakes, 

 as opposed to the vipers which form the other division. They are 

 classed by Gunther, in his catalogue of snakes in the British Museum, 

 under the name of Elapidaj ; have the venom fang grooved, with or 

 without two or three teeth behind it, but never in front of it in the 

 upper jaw ; the head is not sensibly thicker than the neck, and is 

 covered above with moderate-sized or large plates ; the scales in 

 general are smooth. 



1. N.\iA Tkipudians — the cobra, figured by rJussell in his ' Indian 

 Serpents,' part 1, jdates 5 and C; cohra-c/i-capella (PorUiguesc), 

 i.e., the " hooded snake " ; iictff or luiff .samp (Sanscrit and 

 Hindustani), in the south of India ; keoulia (Bengali), also 

 gokhura, i.e., "cow hoof" 



Several of the numerous varieties of this snake have received dis- 

 tinct native names, but it is not necessary to give these here. This 

 snake is too well known to require any detailed description : the 

 genus Naia comprises those snakes that, to the general character of the 

 Elapida; given above, adds that of a distensible neck, the cervical ribs 



