» NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 163 
The poison was injected at 4.32 P.M. At 4.34 there was a 
motion of the bowels. Although this almost invariably occurs, as 
the first symptom of the action of the poison in the lower animals, 
yet it cannot be fully relied on in the case of birds, as it fre- 
quently occurs from fright. 
At 5.10 another motion of the bowels, followed by slight trem- 
ors and convulsive movements, clearly indicating the action of the 
poison. 
At 5.15 no further symptoms of importance appeared. At this 
time he left the room for about two hours, and on returning, at a 
few minutes past 7, found the pigeon dead; its death having oc- 
curred in less than two hours and a half from the time of being 
poisoned. 
Mr. Sceva then made some general remarks on the habits of the 
Cobra, and on the action of its poison. He said he had been 
much surprised, in looking over some works on natural history, at 
the erroneous statements on this subject which many of them con- 
tained. He thought these errors might be attributed, in a great 
measure, to the general aversion which people felt for all poison- 
ous reptiles. This .seems to account, when combined with the 
usual credulity shown in such matters, for the many strange sto- 
ries and absurd reports that had been published of the poisonous 
snakes of distant countries, such as India; and in many instances 
he had found that men holding high positions in the Government 
civil service and physicians residing in that country, had published 
statements which had been accepted here and in Europe, as facts 
-well established by their personal observations and careful investi- 
gations ; whereas they were founded merely on the stories told by 
the jugglers, snake-charmers and other ignorant people. In some 
popular works on natural history recently published, which on 
many subjects appeared to be carefully written, there seemed, in 
this matter, a great want of careful discrimination. In J. G. 
Wood's “ Natural History of Reptiles,” several pages were devoted 
to accounts of antidotes, such as the leaves and roots of the Aris- 
tolochia Indica, the ‘‘ Snake Stone,” etc. These, with a great many 
other reputed antidotes, had been found by recent investigation to 
be utterly worthless. 
_ Mr. Sceva, during the past three years, while attached to the 
Indian Museum at Calcutta, had assisted Dr. Fayrer, the Profes- 
sor of Surgery in the Medical College there, in his numerous ex- 
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