NAJA HAJE. 315 
from its murderous habit of spitting venom on men and animals. The asp and ptyas 
of these writers was the Egyptian cobra. 
Although many examples of N. haje have passed under my observation, I cannot 
recall a single instance of one ejecting its saliva to a distance. 
Smith l has described the spitting-babit of the South-African cobra {N.flava, Merr.), 
and mentions that both natives and Europeans asserted that it could eject its poison, 
or more correctly its saliva, for several feet. He states that if the fluid should happen 
to reach the eyes it produced inflammation and not uncommonly loss of sight. Of 
late years, this habit has been verified in N. nigricollis, which is also found in Upper 
Egypt, and likewise in N. anchietce, each of which, with N. flava, merits the term 
" cuspideira " applied to them by the Portuguese colonists 2 and the equivalent of the 
" cracheur" of the French. 
As M. Berenger-Ferand 3 had related many cases of extensive conjunctivitis followed 
by ulceration of the cornea produced by the ejected saliva of a black serpent on the 
West Coast of Africa, and known in that region as the " cracheur" M. Bavay 4 requested 
M. Lenaour to try and clear up the matter by conducting some investigations in 
Dahomey. The latter encountered the serpent on three occasions, and, on two, his 
bitch had her eyes injured by the liquid ejected by the snake, symptoms of inflam- 
mation manifesting themselves in less than two minutes, followed by conjunctivitis 
and swelling of the eyelids of a grave character, which, however, subsided under 
treatment in twelve days. He also relates that at Porto Nova, a shopkeeper 
working in his store received from a black cobra a jet of liquid that brought on violent 
conjunctivitis. He obtained the head of one of these snakes, which was stated to have 
been N. haje, but it was more likely to be N. nigricollis. Professor Bocage 5 has con- 
firmed the habit of spitting in N. nigricollis by observations made on a specimen he kept 
alive for nine months. When irritated it raised the anterior half of its body, curved 
its head forwards, dilated its hood, and, by an energetic spitting, threw its saliva a 
certain distance. This has been further verified by the personal experience of 
M. Petit 6 , who when attempting to seize a specimen of this snake had a quantity 
of its saliva discharged on to his face and into his eyes, followed immediately by 
terrible pain in his eyes that lasted for six hours. On the other hand, M. Maclaud 7 
mentions a case in which no evil effects happened when the eyes were at once washed 
with water, and he also states that rats when inoculated with the freshly ejected saliva 
1 El. Zool. S. Afr. 1849. 
2 Bocage, Herpet. cTAngola et du Congo, 1895, p. 133. 
3 Arch, de Med. Navale, lvii. 1892, p. 241. 
1 Bull. Soc. Zool. France, xx. 1895, p. 210. 
6 Herpet. dAngola et du Congo, 1895, p. 133. 
6 Bull. Soc. Zool. France,. xx. 1895, p. 239. 
7 Op. cit. 1S96, p. 59. 
2s2 
