Notes on an alleged species of poisonous Lizard, fyc. 389 



in a six dozen empty wine box, so that neither could escape. 

 The snake from the first, appeared perfectly aware of the 

 formidable antagonist he had to deal with, and wanted to 

 avoid the combat. The moment he had killed his foe the 

 Mongoose wanted to escape, but I would not let him ; at 

 length he evinced the greatest anxiety and restlessness, and 

 began to stagger, I then let him go, he kept staggering on 

 through a field of grass, in which I lost sight of him. 

 Suffice it, that in the course of an hour or so he appeared 

 quite well again ; what he ate, or whether he ate any thing 

 of an alexipharmic character at all, I cannot say ; but the 

 belief, or rather the averment, is very general that he does 

 so. It is also said, that the saump wallahs protect them- 

 selves, by rubbing their hands and bodies with the juice of 

 the plant, used by the Mongoose as an antidote, called Amrool, 

 which abounds in Bengal. 



It may not be deemed irrelevant to state here, that at one 

 time entertaining doubts whether carbonic acid gas would 

 kill cold blooded animals, or at least reptiles, I determined 

 to submit the matter to the test of experiment. I procured 

 for the purpose one of the largest and most ferocious Cobra 

 Capellos I ever saw, and introduced him into a large glass jar, 

 to which I adapted the necessary apparatus for eliciting the 

 gas. For a considerable time the reptile appeared to care 

 nothing about it, but as the new element began to fill the 

 glass vessel, his alarm became extreme, and he instinctively 

 kept his head above the stratum of mephitic air. At length 

 his struggles to escape became terrific, and he tried to force 

 a passage through the upper part of the vessel with his nose, 

 and at length dropped down dead to the bottom, where I left 

 him immersed in the gas for half an hour, to make sure of 

 him. He had coiled himself, and was stifFand dead. Had he 

 been poisoned with prussic acid, I should have expected to 

 have found his body quite pliable. Whence the difference ? 

 Calcutta, 2d July, 1840. 



