158 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
a son, whom I baptised, and without much ado I say that he actually 
makes similar cures as his father did before.” 
It is said that people believed then, and I think they believe even 
now, that the Cobra-de-Capello is dreadful not only in its bite, but 
also in the revenge it takes on any person who molests it. It is 
supposed that if the cobra is not killed outright when it is once 
hurt by any person, some time or other it will seek out the offender 
and kill him. When the cobras are in pair and the male happens 
to be killed, the female is said to be sure to revenge herself sooner 
or later on the assassin of the male. It is also said that the cobra 
will traverse a large expanse of water, such as rivers, lakes, d&c., in 
order to take its revenge. , 
These are some of the traditions regarding the cobra, and they 
enable us to compare the information which people had at the time 
of the Portuguese conquests with that of our own days. I pass 
now to the other animal, which the word bis prefixed to the word 
cobra brings into existence. 
Having shown that the word cobra is a Portuguese word, it is not 
unreasonable to infer that the word which is prefixed to it might 
also be Portuguese in its origin, and it appears to me that it is so, 
and that the word is bicho made into bis by the process of contrac- 
tion I have hinted at before. The original idea conveyed by the word. 
bicho in the Portuguese language is that ofan animal which bites, no 
matter what. Whether it bites man or beast, wood, clothes, or the 
earth, it is called in Portuguese the bicho of such and such a thing. 
By amplification the term has been applied to all living beings from 
wan and beast to the microscopic bacteria. For instance, the ex- 
pression biche homem means a man whoisa mischievous animal, 
cunning and mischtef-making. A lion, a tiger, a cobra or any other 
animal, when it is larger than its ordinary dimensions, or when any 
one of them has made large depredations, admiration or fear of it 
would be usually expressed in the Portuguese language by saying 
“he um bicho tremendo,” “it is a tremendous beast.” Any animal, 
then, that bit the cobra or killed it habitually, would becalled Bicho 
de Cobra. With your permission [am going to translate to you a 
passage on the subject from a book published in Goa in 1568. The 
‘author of it is Dr. Garcia de Orta, who lived in Goa for more than 
thirty years, and who was once the owner of the island of Bombay. 
It is as follows (he speaks to his friend Dr. Ruano) :— 
“Jn the beautiful island of Ceylon, though it is full ‘of a large 
