NAJA VULGARIS. 83 



the most deadly, very frequently proving fatal, in the space of a 

 few minutes, to those who unfortunately experience its bite. Its 

 remarkable dilineations, and the occasional expansion of the 

 skin of the neck in the form of a hood, enables the most super- 

 ficial observer to readily distinguish it from every other species of 

 the ophidian tribe. The natives of India pretend to enumerate a 

 great number of varieties, to which they ascribe different degrees 

 of malignity ; but on a careful examination of a great number of 

 individuals, Dr. Russel found the venomous property nearly equal 

 in all. Its usual length is from four to six feet, and the diameter 

 of the body about an inch and a quarter ; but it sometimes attains 

 much larger dimensions. A specimen was lately shewn me, by a 

 dealer in curiosities in Princes Street, Soho, which measured seven 

 feet four inches from the tip of the muzzle to the extremity of the 

 tail. The head is comparatively rather small, broad, ovate, obtuse, 

 depressed on the crown, and covered with large smooth plates. 

 The scales on the neck and sides of the head, and also on the back, 

 are smaller, ovate, polished, contiguous, hardly — except on the 

 hinder part and tail — contiguous, in the living subject ; but two 

 rows on each side of the belly consist of larger scales, ovate and 

 imbricate. The mouth is large ; the lower jaw somewhat shorter 

 than the upper. The teeth, according to Dr. Russel, are few in 

 the lower jaw, sharp, reflex, at regular distances, except in front, 

 where two or three appear closer set and longer. In the upper 

 jaw, as usual in venomous snakes, there is no marginal row ; only 

 two palatal rows of teeth ; these are numerous, reflex, equal, 

 sharp, and smaller than those below. Two fangs, one longer than 

 the other, are generally found emerging from the poison gland on 

 each side of the upper jaw. The eyes are rather small, orbicular 

 and prominent. The nostrils are very near the rostrum, lateral, large, 

 and gaping. The neck, when the animal is at rest, is very little 

 larger than the head ; but at a little distance beyond that part, is a 

 natural swelling or dilitation of the skin, which is continued to the 

 distance of about four inches downwards, where the outline gradu- 

 ally sinks into the outline of the rest of the body. This part is 

 dilatible at the pleasure of the animal ; and when viewed from 

 above, in its most extended state, is somewhat of a cordate form, 



