Chap. IX.] 
SEA-SNAKES. 
309 
Sea-snakes (ffydrophis) are found on all the coasts 
of Ceylon. I have sailed through large shoals of them 
in the Grulf of Manaar, close to the pearl-banks of 
Aripo. The fishermen of Calpentyn on the west live 
in perpetual dread of them, and believe their bite to 
be fatal. In the course of an attempt which was re- 
cently made to place a lighthouse on the great rocks of 
the south-east coast, known by seamen as the Basses l , or 
Baxos, the workmen who first landed found the portion 
of the surface liable to be covered by the tides, honey- 
combed, and hollowed into deep holes filled with water, 
in which were abundance of fishes and some molluscs. 
Some of these cavities also contained sea-snakes from 
four to five feet long, which were described as having 
the head " hooded like the cobra de capello, and of a 
light grey colour, slightly speckled. They coiled them- 
selves like serpents on land, and darted at poles thrust 
in among them. The Singhalese who accompanied the 
party, said that they not only bit venomously, but 
crushed the limb of any intruder in their coils." 2 
Still, sea-snakes, though well-known to the natives, 
are not abundant round Ceylon, as compared with their 
numbers in other places. Their principal habitat is 
the ocean between the southern shores of China and 
the northern coast of New Holland ; and their western 
limit appears to be about the longitude of Cape Comorin. 
It has long since been ascertained that they frequent 
the seas that separate the islands of the Pacific ; but 
they have never yet been found in the Atlantic, nor even 
1 The Basses are believed to be possibly be the Basses of Ptolemy's 
the remnants of the great island of map of Taprobane. 
Griri, swallowed np by the sea. — 2 Official Keport to the Governor 
Mahawanso, eh. i. p. 4. They may of Ceylon. 
X 3 
