378 JOURNAL, BOMB A Y NA TUBAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVII. 



I am told that the Kanjars, a wild race of people inhabiting Oudh and 

 Rohilkhand, eat snakes, having decapitated and caudally amputated 

 the body. Mr. Mackinnon tells me the tribe known as Myhras, who 

 inhabit the Dun, devour snakes. David Livingstone* mentions a 

 common watersnake yellow, spotted dark brown, of a harmless kind 

 which the Bayeiye tribe in Africa ate and relished as food. 



Ouvierf informs us that the seasnake Pelamis bicolor {Hydrus 

 platurus) is eaten by the natives of Taheite, and Cantort speaking of 

 the same snake, says it is used as an article of diet in New Guinea, the 

 Molucca Islands, and Otaheite. Campbell§ speaking of the Andama- 

 nese credits them with including sea-snakes in their dietary. The same 

 writer|| says that the Botocudos, Puris, and Caraodos, wild tribes inha- 

 biting Western Brazil, eat snakes among many other animals, and again 

 the same writerU, speaking of the diet of the Californians, says they 

 prefer reptiles, insects and vermin to mammals and birds, and mentions 

 that they eat snakes with the exception of the rattlesnake. 



Doubtless a whole host of other people conciliate their gustatory 

 nerves by practising ophiophagy. 



Medicine. — Another motive which is responsible for considerable 

 diminution in their numbers is that arising from the medicinal virtues 

 attributed variously to their flesh, organs, or secretions. Probably the 

 mortality from this humane object is even superior to that incurred 

 either by man's serpentivorous tastes, or love of butchery. 



Vipers appear to have been especially valued for medicinal purposes 

 in many parts of Europe even up to the recent past. 



Both Pliny and Galen** praise the efficacy of \iper flesh in the cure 

 " of ulcers, elephantiasis, and other disorders arising from a corrupt state 

 " of the system. The flesh was served to the patient boiled like fish, as 

 " being more efficacious than when taken in the form of powder, or other 

 " dried state," and the account goes on to say that Sir Kenelm Digby's 

 beautiful wife was fed on capons fattened with the flesh of vipers. 



* " Journeys and [Researches," p. 72. 



t Encyclop. of Nat. Hist., Vol. Ill, p. 153. 



J Jourl. Asiat. Soc, Bengal, 1847, p. 1057. 



§ Brit. Medl. Journal, Oct. 14th, 1905. 



|| Brit. Medl. Jourl., Sept. 16th, 1905. 



t Brit. Medl. Jourl., August 19th, 1905. 



** "Encyclop. of Nat. Hist.", Vol. III., p. 1210. 



