296 EEPTILES. [Chap. IX. 
attention was carefully directed to the poisonous serpents 
of Ceylon 1 , came to the conclusion that but four, out of 
twenty species examined by him, were venomous, and 
that of these only two (the tic-polonga? and cobra de 
capello 3 ) were capable of inflicting a wound likely to be 
fatal to man. The third is the carawala 4 , a brown 
snake of about two feet in length ; and for the fourth, 
of which only a few specimens have been procured, the 
Singhalese have no name in their vernacular — a proof 
that it is neither deadly nor abundant. But Dr. Davy's 
estimate of the venom of the carawala is below the 
truth, as cases have been authenticated to me, in which 
death from its bite ensued within a few days. The 
effect, however, is not uniformly fatal ; a circumstance 
which the natives explain by asserting that there are 
three varieties of the carawala, named the hil-la, the 
dunu, and the ma^-carawala ; the second being the 
largest and the most dreaded. 
In like manner, the tic-polonga, particularised by 
Dr. Davy, is said to be but one out of seven varieties of 
that formidable reptile. The word " tic " means literally 
the " spotted " polonga, from the superior clearness of 
the markings on its scales. Another, the nidi, or " sleep- 
ing " polonga, is so called from the fact that a person 
bitten by it is soon prostrated by a lethargy from which 
he never awakes. 5 These formidable serpents so infested 
1 See Davy's Ceylon, ch. xiv. folk-lore in Ceylon in connexion 
2 Daboia elegans, Baud. with snakes, is the belief that a 
3 Naja tripudians, Merr. deadly enmity subsists between the 
4 Trigonocephaly hypnale, Merr. polonga and the cobra de capello, 
5 The ether varieties are the and that the latter, which is 
getta, lay, alu, Jcunu, and nil-po- naturally shy and retiring, is pro- 
longas. I have heard of an eighth, voked to conflicts by the audacity 
the palla-polonga. of its rival. Hence the proverb 
Amongst the numerous pieces of applied to persons at enmity, that 
