1907.] ox SERPENTS IN CAPTIVITY. 791 



Indian Cobra (JVaia triptidians). 



(India.) 

 Although suffering from a tumour behind the head, from which 

 it died in September, this snake took a rat on one occasion. 



Yellow Cobra {JV^aia flava). 



(S. Africa.) 



This snake took one or two young rats near]}- regulai-ly every 

 week. 



Black-anb- White Cobra {Naia melanoleuca). 

 (W. Africa.) 



Like the Yellow Cobra, this snake, deposited in Aug. 1905, 

 fed nearly every week, except when quiescent before shedding 

 his skin. He took from one to four rats at a meal. 



Puff Adder {Bitis arietans). 

 (S. Africa.) 



Of this species the Society possesses a very large number of 

 specimens, mostly presented during the course of the present year 

 by Mr. A. W. Guthrie, C.M.Z.S., of Port Elizabeth. Owing to 

 the necessity of keeping a number together in one cage, it is quite 

 impossible for us to state that all of them took dead rats. Some 

 five or six rats, however, were placied in each cage every 

 week, and were for the most part eaten, sometimes at once, 

 sometimes in the course of the night. A large specimen, deposited 

 in May 1906, and kept in a cage by himself, took small rabbits, 

 guinea-pigs or rats fairly regularly throughout the summer. 



Copper Head [Ancistrodon contortrix). 

 (N. America). 



Three specimens of this species, received in 1900 and 1901, 

 have fed regularly on rats throughout the summer and autumn. 



An example of an allied species, the Water- Viper [Ancistrodon 

 piscivorus), that was formerly exhibited in the Zoological Gardens 

 at Clifton, was fed upon pieces of raw meat, which it took just as 

 readily as the Society's specimens take rats or mice. 



Fer-de- Lance {Lachesis lanceolata). 

 (S. America.) 



The three snakes of this species possessed by the Society are 

 the survivors of a brood of about twenty purchased in Dec. 1905. 

 They were fed at first upon small fish. They now take mice and 

 small rats, and are the best feeding snakes in the collection. 

 They have scarcely refused food once through the summer and 

 autumn, and raise their heads in expectation as soon as they 

 hear the doors of the adjoining cages being opened. 



