NOTES ON THE ORIGIN OF THE BELIEF IN THE BIS-COBRA. 161 
This is the passage from Garcia de Orta, who was considered to be 
the highest authority in Natural History among the Portuguese in 
India. It was said at'that time (and I am sure it is said also now 
in some places) that this bicho not only fought with, and killed the 
cobras, but that, when hungry, if it happened to spy a cobra, 
caught it, divided it into three parts, and ate the middle part; then 
it joined together the remaining two parts, and apphed to the 
wound the juice or the leaf of some plant. The cobra then got well 
and walked off as quictly as if nothing had happened to x. 
About 400 B.C. Aristotle mentioned this animal as being an 
enemy of serpents, in his History of Animals. 
Pierre Belon, a French naturalist, who travelled in Greece, Asia, 
Keypt, Palestine, and Arabia, describes this animal in his Obser- 
vations of Singular and Memorable Things he foand in those places. 
This book was published in 1555. I give an extract from it in 
the original French— Les habitans d’ Alexandrie nourrissent une 
béte nommeée wehnewmon, qui est particulicrement trouvée en Egypt. 
On la peut apprivoiser és maisons tout ainsi comme un chat ou 
un chien. Le vulgaire a cessé de la nommer par son nom ancien, 
car il lanomment en leur langage rat de Pharaon. Or nous avons 
vu que les paysans en apportoient des petits aux marché 
d’Alexandrie, ot ils sont bien recueillis pour en nourrir és maisons, 
a cause qu’ils chassent les rats, les serpents, &c. Cet animal est cau- 
teleux en épiant sa pature ; il se nourrit indifferemment de tou- 
tes viandes vives, comme d’escarbots, lézards, chaméleons, et 
généralement de toutes especes de serpens, de grenouilles, rats et 
souris ; il est friand des oiseaux, des poules et poulets,” 
Prospero Alpini, a Venetian naturalist, while acting as physician 
to the Venetian Consul in Egypt in 1580, had one of these animais 
with him, and like Pips of Mr. Sterndale, it also proved to him a 
friend. He describes it in his Historia. Hgypti thus: “« Ichneumon 
seu Mus Pharaonis- Mihi ichneumon fuit ultissimus ad mures ex 
meo cubiculo fugandos ; unum alui, a quo murium damna plane 
cessarunt, siquidem quotquot offendebat, interimebat, longeque ad 
hos necandos fugandosque fele est ichneumon utilior.” These works 
were published up to the 16th century. ‘ 
Engelbert Kaempfer, a German naturalist who was in India about 
1690, is probably the first author who refersto the animal as the Man- 
goose. In the Amcenitates Academice of 1693 he refers to the 
cobra tree also, and he says that the Portuguese called it Mungo and 
