NAJA HAJB. 317 
The native name is *\j = nasliir, meaning " spreading," in allusion to the expansion 
of the neck when the snake rises to strike or is excited. The Arabs appear to 
distinguish a number of varieties, for which they have special names. Thus the 
yellow spotted cobras are seemingly known to them as bukhalch and the young as 
abu dukur or ebnu. The specific term haje applied to this cobra is simply the Arabic 
jj^. = haiya, a serpent. 
A few interesting variations are present in the shields on the side of the snout. In 
the fifth specimen there are only G labials on the right side, as in N. niqricollis, while 
in the sixth individual the third labial enters the orbital margin on one side of the 
head as in that species, while on the opposite side (left) the third labial tends to 
divide and to produce a second prseocular as in it. In the seventh specimen a very 
small shield lies opposite the suture between the prasocular and the third labial, thus 
occupying the position of a prseocular, and behind the posterior nasal and between the 
prseocular and the third labial is a minute shield in the position of a loreal. On the 
right side of the heads of numbers 11 and 13 a small shield is present as a second 
prseocular, and in the former of these two a postocular has fused with a subocular. 
These variations indicate a very close relationship with N. nigricollis, and illustrate a 
truth always being forced on the observer in dealing with many so-called genera of 
reptiles, that species are not the well-defined entities that many of them are supposed 
to be. Some of the foregoing specimens also manifest a distinct tendency to division 
in the anal. 
No systematic investigation into the action of the venom of the Egyptian cobra has 
yet been undertaken. Panceri 1 made some remarks on the subject about a quarter of a 
century ago ; but there is nothing in his communication of any importance, in view of the 
researches that have been carried on of late years into the nature of the venom of the 
Indian cobra, N. tripudians. 
Sewall 2 , in 1887, showed that animals could be rendered immune to as much as 
seven times a lethal dose of rattlesnake-venom by previous repeated inoculations of 
very small quantities of the same poison. A year later Kaufmann 3 made known 
immunization against the venom of the viper by the same process. In 1891, Kanthack -, 
in his experiments that had been conducted in India, rendered animals resistant to 
cobra-venom, and experimented with the object of ascertaining whether the serum of 
animals rendered immune had any antitoxic properties, but the results were negative. 
MM. Phisalix and Bertrand 5 , three years later, communicated to the Academy of 
1 Bull, de l'lnstit. Egypte, Annee 1872-1873, no. 12 ; Exper. sur les effets du vem'n du Noja d'Egypte efc 
du Oeraste (Naples, 1873). 
2 Journ. Physiol, viii. 1887, p. 203. 
3 ' Du venin de la Vipere,' Mem. couronne par TAcad. de Med. 1888 (Paris, 18S9) ; Mem. Acad, de Med. 
xxxvi. fasc. 1" 1891, p. 85 ; C. E. Soc. Biol. Paris, 1894, p. 113. 
4 Journ. Physiol, xiii. 1892, p. 271. 
s 0. E. Ac. Paris, 1894, p. 356; C. E. Soc. Biol. Paris, 1894, p. Ill et p. 124. 
