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SPITTING SNAKE IN PEMBA 
Eyes pale grey with black pupil. White fleshy patches on 
each side of head about 1| inches square with small red fleshy 
patch on top. Hanging fold of flesh under neck red with 
small patch of black on top. Feathers on neck lavender 
colour shading off to dark grey on back. End tail feathers 
black. The top wing feathers are white and those nearest 
body yellow. The outer shaft feathers are black and the 
rest chocolate. The tail is 10 inches long and black. Each 
wing when stretched is 2 feet 6 inches. Legs are black. 
Immature Male . — It measures from ground to the top of 
the crest when standing erect 29 inches. From end of beak 
over top of head and along back to end of tail 84 inches. Total 
spread of wings from tip to tip when fully extended 58 inches. 
The colour of the body is very much that of an ordinary turkey 
while' crest and neck are golden colour. The crest is woolly 
and quite unlike that of the adult bird. The large end wing 
feathers are black. Those nearer the body are reddish tipped 
with black. The small wing feathers are white touched with 
black. This -white is very apparent when the wings are 
spread out. Eyes brown with black pupil. 
SPITTING SNAKE IN PEMBA 
By C. W. Hobley 
Captain Craster, B.E., in his recent book on Pemba, 
describes a khaki- coloured snake three to four feet long, thick 
in proportion and of sluggish habit. When disturbed it is 
easily brought to bay, swells out its neck and spits in the 
faces of those disturbing it. A case is quoted of a dog 
which received some of this poison in its eyes and suffered 
greatly for a day. 
Captain Craster examined the head of one of these snakes 
and found that it had no poison fangs, the poison ducts 
terminating in two small bony lumps in the upper jaw; he 
therefore presumes that the poison is not used by the snake 
to kill its prey but as a means of defence. 
Now, the East African spitting snake is jet black on the 
