THE COMMON INDIAN SNAKES. 473 



Tennent * tells me that the Singhalese say that when it has 

 devoured a meal of uncomfortable proportions, it will drag itself 

 through two closely adjacent trees with the object of crushing 

 the contained mass. I put this down as a myth, because a great 

 distension is in itself prone to tax the abdomen to its bursting 

 power, and under such circumstances trifling mechanical agencies 

 would still further jeopardise the integrity of the tissues. 



Dr. Davy f says that the Singhalese believe that the "pimbera" 

 when young was a tic polonga (Russell's viper) and had poisonous 

 fangs, but at a certain age it loses these, acquires spurs ('rudimen- 

 tary limbs), and is then metamorphosed into a python. They 

 suppose further that the " spurs " are poisonous, and it uses them 

 in striking its prey. Another belief is that the dam twists her 

 abdomen during parturition, and the males have then to seek and 

 mate Avith female noyas, as though there were no other females of 

 their own kind with which to mate ! Novas I take to be nagas or 

 cobras. Such a belief seems curious in face of the fact which 

 must be known to them, one would suppose, that the female 

 incubates her eggs. Colonel Dawson tells me that in Travancore 

 the natives believe so in the efiicacy of the fat of the python as a 

 healing agent, that they affirm that if a snake is cut in pieces, the 

 application of the fat to the raw parts effects an immediate reunion 

 of them. 



Bistrihution. — Ceylon, Peninsula India from Cape Comorin to 

 the Himalayas, Assam, Burma, but though apparently not in- 

 habiting Indo-China re-appears in South China, the Malay 

 Peninsula and Java. 



Its exact limits in North- West India are uncertain, but Murray 

 records it from Sind (Joongshai, Jerruck) and the Punjab. 

 Many of our members should be able to give us information as to 

 whether it occurs in Kashmir. It seems probable that the Indus 

 demarcates its limits in this part of India. 



Whilst occurring plentifully in Burma, it is not known from the 

 Andaman-Nicobar Insular group. As regards the Malayan Penin* 



* Nat. Hist, of Ceylon, p. 304. 



t An Account of tlie Interior of Ceylon, p. 82. 



