790 Natural History of certain Animals, [Aug. 



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. Immediately 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 convo- 

 cation terminated. Now the narrator 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 intelligence, and in no sort the man to tell 

 a useless falsehood. It is, I was then informed, by these sort of assem- 

 blages that the king snake asserts his power, and that his subjects are 

 called to them 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 forthcoming, or should even the offering produced be insuffi- 

 cient, one of the luckless ophids, pays in person the penalty of the omis- 

 sion, — 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-known 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 any thing 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. 



