THE SNAKE AND ITS NATURAL FOES. 383 



arborescens all over the country, and in some parts the venom of ser- 

 pents is added to increase its virulence. 



Mervyn Smith* says that the tiger slayers in (Jhota Nagpur poison 

 their arrows with cobra-poison and set them in traps to he sprung. 

 When wounded, the tigers go off and soon die, their movements being 

 watched by the hunters. Sims Wocdhead commenting upon a paper 

 which appeared recently by (Jhalmersf on the poison used by the Fra 

 Fras, a tribe inhabiting, I believe, Uganda, says: "There appears to me 

 to be a probability that the venom is extracted from the heads of snake 

 before they are boiled with the powdered seeds and that this venom 

 may be added to the vegetable poison smeared on the arrow after it has 

 cooled." 



Trade purposes. — Snakes are captured by many people in some 

 numbers for show purposes, and though the destruction so caused 

 may not amount to much, the captured snakes often speedily emaciate 

 and die, requiring the substitution of others. Indian jugglers always 

 have a few in their stock-in-trade, and are always ready to let the 

 mongoose that accompanies them worry them to death for a few 

 annas. 



In addition, they are sometimes called in to rid some infested place 

 of snakes, and doubtless do in some cases justify their errand. The 

 Psylli of Africa appear to perform a similar office. FignierJ 

 speaks of these people, and from his description they appear to be a 

 caste of Egyptians, since he says the arts they practise are inherited, 

 and he expressly states that outsiders who seek to become one of the 

 fraternity fail to acquire their arts. They are to be seen in Cairo 

 and Alexandria, and live by exhibiting snakes. They sometimes 

 appear in processions, and carry capacious bags in which their snakes 

 are secreted. These they take out and allow to entwine about their 

 persons, and, in order to excite popular feeling, even cause them to bite 

 their bodies. They claim to have acquired ascendancy over even 

 poisonous snakes, for they include the Egyptian cobra (Naia haje) in 

 their stock-in-trade. They also claim to be able to induce snakes to 

 leave their natural haunts, and then catch them, so that when a house 

 becomes infested with these creatures, the Egyptians frequently send 



* " Sport and Adventure in the Indian Jungle," p. 104. 

 t Royal Army Medical Corps Journal, August 1905'. 

 I " The Life and Habits of Animals, " p. 35. 



