274i CLASS REPTILIA. 



The Cobra Capello of the Portuguese of the East 

 Indies, (^Coluh. Naia, Lin., JSfaia TripudianSy 

 Merr.) Seb. II. 85, 1. 89, 1, 4, &c. Lacep. 

 II. iii. 1 : 



Named Spectacled Serpent, from a black Une drawn on 

 the widened part of its disk in the form of spectacles. 

 It is extremely venomous, but it is pretended that 

 the root of the Opliiorhyza Mangos is a specific 

 against its bite. The Indian jugglers tame some of 

 these serpents, and teach them to play tricks and 

 dance to astonish the people, after having taken 

 care, however, to pull out their poisonous teeth. 

 The same use is made in Egypt of another species. 



The HajCi (Coluber Haje, Linn.) GeofFr. Egypt, 

 Rept. pi. vii., and Savigny, same work, Supl. 

 pi. iii.: 



In which the neck widens somewhat less, and which 

 is greenish, bordered with brown. The jugglers 

 of the country, by pressing its nape with the finger, 

 know how to throw this serpent into a kind of cata- 

 lepsy, which renders it stiff and immoveable, thus 

 seeming to change it into a rod or stick. The habit 

 which the haje has of raising itself upright, when 

 approached, made the ancient Egyptians believe 

 that it guarded the fields which it inhabited. They 

 made it the emblem of the protecting Divinity of 

 the world, and sculptured it on the portals of all 



