3S0 CLASS REPTILIA. 



quickly the poison discharged recently into the body of an 

 animal bitten by the naia. 



Kasmpfer has highly praised the virtues of the ophiorriza 

 mungOy which grows in the warm countries of Asia, in cases 

 of this kind. The remarks of Russell are in direct contra- 

 diction to this assertion, and confirm on the other hand the 

 singular virtues of the Tanjore pills. 



Notwithstanding the dangers to be apprehended from the 

 cobra di capello, the Indian jugglers contrive to tame in 

 some measure these redoubtable reptiles so as to shew them 

 in public, and cause them to execute certain movements in 

 cadence. These pretended enchanters carry these serpents 

 from house to house, making them dance to the sound of the 

 flute. 



The fellows, who in Hindoostan are called by the Dutch 

 name snake-mans, pretend to have the power of charming 

 serpents by the effect of music, and carry about with them 

 remedies which they aver to be of marvellous efficacy against 

 the bite of these reptiles. 



They even voluntarily suffer themselves to be bitten by 

 the cobra di capello, whose fangs are in all probability first 

 extracted. There are to be seen daily in the streets and 

 public places, seated on the ground, squatting upon their 

 knees with a small reed flute in the left hand. They open a 

 round basket in which the reptile is kept, and at the sound 

 of the instrument he issues forth, raises himself by degrees, 

 rears upright, shouts out, moves in cadence, keeps his eye 

 fixed upon his master, imitates his gestures in some sort, and 

 follows all the motions of his right hand, in which he folds 

 the cover of the basket. 



In an anonymous work published at the commencement of 

 the eighteenth century on the conformity of the customs of 

 the East Indians and Jews, the author, who gives a figure 

 of the kind of dance which we have just described, says 



