96 JOURNAL, BOMBA Y NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIV. 



but easy. These methods have to commend them, firstly, the wonderful 

 constancy of arrangement of scales in individuals of the same species ; 

 secondly, the fact that reliable information can often be gathered from 

 badly mutilated specimens, by careful ablution, and restitution of the 

 parts, where other points, such as shape of head, presence of fang, etc., 

 have been hopelessly crushed out of recognition ; thirdly, by pursu- 

 ing this course, one is equally enabled to identify a snake from its 

 slough alone, and acquaint oneself with the nature of the tenants of 

 one's bungalow and compound which may happen to shed their skins 

 there. 



Before entering further on the discussion it would be as well to 

 specify what snakes are here considered as poisonous and what harmless. 



The 61 varieties of snakes that are included here as poisonous are all 

 endowed with a perfect poison apparatus, i. e. (1) a gland in which 

 poison is secreted and stored for use ; (2) a duct to convey the poison to 

 the fang ; and (3) a fang situated in the front of the mouth furnished 

 with either a canal or groove through which the poison gains access to 

 the wound after penetration. Many of these snakes, it is true, even in 

 their mature form, attain such small dimensions that a fatal issue is not 

 likely to supervene from their bite in healthy adult man. In others the 

 poison has a comparatively moderate virulence, causing, perhaps, slight 

 or severe constitutional symptoms, but rarely or never death. Others 

 are of such rarity that the eifects of their poison on man are as yet 

 little or unknown. One class of snakes which possess a poison apparatus 

 and which are endowed with a fang situated at the back of the mouth, 

 and whose bite is known to be harmless to man, is for this reason 

 excluded from the poisonous and incorporated with the harmless 

 varieties. 



Perhaps it will be as well to consider first the characters by which 

 the commonest and most deadly of the poisonous snakes may be 

 recognised, and I will begin with the cobra. The technical names of 

 the scales hereafter mentioned will be easily understood by a reference 

 to the appended figures. 



Cobra — Naia tripudiaus (including the auocellate, monocellate and 

 binocellate varieties). 



The majority of people, I have no doubt, think the identification of 

 a cobra an easy matter, but though it is usually easy to diagnose if 



