Miscellaneous . 513 



pear, — as to all which matters I have never been able to obtain, amid 

 many tales, any relator daring enough to declare himself an eye- 

 witness of the marvels he recounted. At last, mention being made 

 of the king snake, a party present said, — " At any rate I can assure 

 you of the existence of him, for it is well known that I have seen," 

 and the story to the following effect was then told. The narrator, 

 being at that time, he said, about fourteen years old, had run hastily 

 to the terraced roof of a ground floor house to recover his kite, when 

 his attention was attracted by a large goomna (cobra capello), which, 

 without perceiving him, raised itself with dilated hood in the erect 

 attitude common with those snakes, and uttered a loud cry. Im- 

 mediately some ten or twelve snakes appeared from different quarters, 

 and assembled before their king ; when after a short time he pounced 

 upon and devoured one of the smaller ones, with which arbitrary 

 assertion of regal power the convocation terminated. Now the nar- 

 rator of this tale had no interest in attempting to mislead me ; he had 

 mentioned what he stated again and again to the majority of persons 

 present, for years before I ever saw him ; and he is naturally of in- 

 telligence, and in no sort the man to tell a useless falsehood. It is, 

 I was then informed, by these sort of assemblages that the king snake 

 asserts his power, and that his subjects are called to him for the 

 purpose of bringing tribute, in the shape of dainties for the royal 

 palate ; should however no tributary frog, or cat, or bird be forth- 

 coming, or should even the offering produced be insufficient, one of 

 the luckless ophids pays in person the penalty of the omission, — even 

 as had been witnessed by my informant. 



I ventured with respect to his story to object, in as delicate a way 

 as I could, to the incident of the cry uttered by the king snake, but 

 in this I was immediately over-ridden. The cry of the large goomna 

 was well-know r n in the ruinous city where we were, and in which they 

 abound, and it was described to me as a strident sound, the attempted 

 imitation of which resembled the acute staccato note of a treble haut- 

 boy. I heard this sound myself subsequently during a sleepless night, 

 emitted by a large snake which killed a rat in my bed-room : as it was 

 pitch-dark I was unable to rise and destroy the intruder, but the 

 sound was too peculiar not to have been that of the ophid, according 

 as it did with the description given me, and being unlike anything I 

 ever heard before, as also contrasting distinctly and remarkably with 

 the cries of its victim. 



I have noted down these trivial, but not incurious matters, as an 

 inducement to the record of more valuable facts as to the opinions 

 held by natives upon the habits of animals, whence perhaps some 

 really useful information may be elicited. 



Note by Mr. Blyth. — The snake which I have had invariably 

 pointed out to me as the Raj Samp, by natives of Bengal, is Bungarus 

 annularis, which habitually preys upon other snakes, and is currently 

 said to be a deadly enemy of the Cobra. I have taken a Tropidonatus 

 umbratus about two-thirds the length of its devourer, from the 

 stomach of this species, and the specimen is stuffed in the Society's 

 Museum as in the act of seizing its victim which it had swallowed. 

 Ann. $ Mag. JV. Hist. Ser. 2. Vol. v. 33 



