494 JO URNAL, BOMB A ¥ NAT URA L :HISTOR Y SOCIETY, Vol IX. 



Last monsoon, I on different days in my garden killed two pairs of snakes 

 ■which were hanging on to the shrubs in a state of coition. In each case, before 

 killing them., I thought there was only one snake, but when killing the one I 

 saw that I had also to despatch its fellow. 



Here then is my explanation. The snake your correspondent thought he 

 had shot were two snakes in coition. He missed his aim, or did . not greatly 

 injure them, but so startled them that they parted, and rushed off for safety to 

 the nearest water. 



Bombay, April, 1895. D. GOSTLING, f.s.a. 



With reference to note II on page 335, 1 will give my experience : — 

 I have in two instances cut a rock-snake, measuring about seven feet long, 

 into two pieces at the middle. In one instance the snake was in the rafters 

 of the roof of the cook-room at Matheran. I first pinned it with the prongs 

 of a carving fork tied to a stick, then cut it into two pieces with a sword tied 

 to another stick. When I released it, the fore half dropped on the floor quite 

 alive, when I despatched it, the rear half remaining twisted in the rafters. 



In the other case, I was travelling in Baroda territory with a native soldier 

 as escort. I saw a snake twisted in the small branches of a bush by the 

 road-side. I borrowed my escort's sword and cut the snake in two in the 

 middle. In my excitement it seemed to me that I had missed the blow, for 

 the snake went off with great rapidity ; he seemed to me to be of great 

 length, fully fifteen feet long, and his head disappeared down a hole in the 

 ground. I then pinned his body with the point of the sword near the cut, 

 looked back at the bush, and found the rear half entwined in the branches as 

 I had first seen it. The apparent great length was an optical illusion due to 

 the rear half remaining in the bush while the fore half travelled on. With 

 some difficulty I got the fore half out of the hole, very much alive, and 

 despatched it. I made no attempt to watch how long the fore half would 

 live in its mutilated condition. The rear half in each case was practically 

 dead, though showing a slight muscular movement. 



D. GOSTLING, f.s.a. 



Bombay, 17th April, 1895. 



No. XIII.— FISH LEAVING THE WATER. 



It may interest the Society to read my experience of a fish travelling on 

 dry land in our hot Indian sun. In the monsoon of 1893 I was in 

 Porbandar, Kathiawar. It was in August, and there had been little or no rain 

 for two months, and the crops had in many places perished for want of 

 rain. At 1 p.m. during the heat of the day I was seated in the dry sandy 

 bed of a river under a road bridge twelve miles from Porbandar. The sun 

 was burning hot with a cloudless sky. While I was seated eating my tiffin 

 I thought I saw a large fish jump into the air from a dry gravelly sand bank 



