THE POISONOUS SNAKES OF INDIA. 
53 
continent by balf-a-dozen species of the genus Callopbis. 
These are small serpents, with sluggish movements and dull 
senses. They have short fangs. They feed on harmless snakes, 
the Calamarias, which curiously resemble! them in habit and 
physiognomy. The Callophides will not bite unless irritated. 
According to Dr. Fayrer “it is probable that a fatal result 
would not be produced by their bite in man. The poison is 
virulent, neverthelesss, and fowls bitten by some of the species 
succumbed in from one to three hours.” 
The seas around India swarm with Hydrophidae, the number 
of which is about equal to that of the Thanatophidians on the 
adjacent continent. They are active snakes, and move very 
gracefully in their own element, seeking rather to escape from 
man than to g,ttack him, which, however, they are ready to do 
wiien captured or irritated. In spite of their small size and 
relatively small fangs, they are extremely venomous. Dr. 
Fayrer was “ informed by Mr. Galiffe that a fisherman bitten 
by a salt-water snake somewhere near the salt lakes, died in 
one hour and a quarter.” Dr. Fayrer’s “ own experiments and 
those of Mr. Stewart at Pooree prove, that not only when able 
to bite voluntarily, but even when weak and unable to bite, 
when the jaws were compressed on the animal, death resulted. 
The fishermen on the coast know their dangerous properties, 
and carefully avoid them.” 
From a practical point of view four of the terrestrial venomous 
snakes of India far exceed in importance their fellows. These 
four species are the Cobra, the Ophiophagus, the Krait, and the 
Tic-polonga. The name of the species causing death cannot, it 
is true, often be ascertained. It is, therefore, possible that we 
may underrate the venomous power of some snakes, especially 
of Bungarus fasciatus and of Echis. But the fact remains — that 
whenever an Indian snake, which has killed a man by its bite, 
is secured and examined, it is found almost invariably to belong 
to one of the four species just mentioned.* 
The Cobra and Ophiophagus are easily distinguished by their 
hood from the Krait, which shares with them the characters of 
the Elapidse. All these differ from the Tic-polonga in having 
one or two small solid teeth behind each fang, 
two nasal shields, 
smooth scales, 
a rather small head, and 
eyes with round pupils. 
* India, therefore, resembles Australia, and not Africa or tropical 
America, in that its most formidable venomous snakes are Elapids, together 
with a single characteristic species of viper. 
