40 Description of a new species of Naga, or Cobra de Capello, [Jan. 



mark, but is crossed by three of the transverse dark bands, characteristic 

 of it as a disiinct species. 



The body is round, covered with oblong, oval scales, distinct, close, but 

 not in)biicate. The length 10 feet 1^ inch, of which the tail forms about 

 two feet. The abdominal plates or scutse are long and 236 in number, the 

 sub-candhl scutellseare about 84 (?) pairs. The colour above was a pale 

 yellowish brown, with a strong bluish grey tinge on the upper parts of 

 the body, marked wiih numerous broad dark bands, in number 64. The 

 animal appeared to be languid and weak, as if about to change its skin j 

 it did not eat, and a frog which had been put up with it in the box 

 hopped away unmolested. For this reason, the colours when in health 

 may differ fiom ihose here stated. The accompanying sketch was made 

 the first day I procured the animal, and I had no opportunity of compar- 

 ing it carefully in detail ; for, a few days afterwards, it died, during my 

 absence at Guindy, and had begun to decompose before it was disco- 

 vered to be dead. An indifferent preparation has been made of its skin. 



The group of Naias, or Nagas, forms a subdivision of the genus Vipe^ 

 ra of Daudin (wbo separated the poisonous serpents with insulated 

 fangs from the Linnpsen genus Co/«6er), in the Regne Animal of Cu- 

 vier, distinguished as having " the head furnished with plates and the 

 anterior ribs susceptible of being raised up, and drawn forwards, so as to 

 dilate that part of the trunk into a disc, more or less broad." But a 

 German Naturalist, Fitzinger, has formed them into a separate genus 

 under the name of Cobra. 



The most celebrated species that have been described, are the Coluber 

 Kaia of Linne,or iVo/a Tnpudians of Merrem,commonboth to India and 

 South America, and the Col. Haje of Egypt, also described by Linn^ 

 andGeoftVoy. Both of these differ entirely from the present species. 

 Of the Indian cobra, Russell* notices eleven varieties, varying only in 

 circumstances of colour and in the presence or absence of the spectacle 

 mark on the neck. 



In Gmelin's edition of the Systema Naturae, four varieties of the Celu' 

 ber Naia are noticed on the authority of Laurentini,t a German writer of 

 the last century, who seems to have borrowed ihemfrom Seba. 



These are — 1. iVami^a*cm^a,Seba, vol. 11, tab. 89. f. 3. 



2. N. Seame7isiSf ib. f. 1. 2. 



3. N.Maculata, ib. tab. 90. f. 2. 



4. N. Brasiliemist ib. tab. 89. f. 4. 

 * Indian serpents, p. 7. pi. 5, 6. Part i, and pi. 1. Part ii. 



t Specimen Medicum exhibeas Synopsis Keptilium emeadatum, Auctore J, N . Lau« 

 xentiai ; Yieana 1768, 



