318 The Animal-Lore of Shalcspeare’s Time. 
harts and bulls all whole ” (Batman upon Bartholomew 
1582). 
Don John Bermudez, ambassador from Presbyter 
John, sovereign of the northern parts of India, to John 
III. of Portugal, in the year 1565, describes several 
snakes under their native names. One of these seems to 
correspond to the cobra di capello , a species found in 
abundance in India and the neighbouring countries. 
“ There he other,” he writes, “ which they call, Of the shadow, or 
Canopie, because it hath a sldnne on the head, wherewith it covereth a 
very precious stone, which they say it hath in her head.” (. Purchas , 
vol. ii. p. 1169.) 
Among the adventures of Antoine Knivet, who 
accompanied Thomas Candish in his second voyage to 
the South Seas, in 1591, an encounter with a soroeucu, a 
species of snake, is related:— 
“ The serpent that I killed was thirteene span long, it had foure 
and twentie teeth,' as sharpe as any naile, about the necke it has 
greater shels then the other parts of her body; the shels were blacke 
and russet like a coller, and on her body they were russet and darke 
greene; under her belly all speckled with black and white. It had 
foure sharpe feet, no longer than a mans finger, it had a tongue like a 
harping iron, her taile was like a straight bull home, all black and 
white, listed. ( Purchas , vol. iv. p. 1230.) 
Champlain, in his account of a voyage to the West 
Indies and Mexico in the years 1599-1602, mentions the 
rattlesnake. He, however, confuses this species with the 
horned snake, and makes an obvious mistake as to the 
venomous property of the creature’s tail. He writes: — 
“Throughout New Spain, there is a kind of snake, which is of the 
length of a pike, and as thick as the arm ; the head as large as a hen’s 
egg, on which they have two plumes ; at the end of the tail they have 
a rattle, which makes a noise as they glide along. They are very 
dangerous with their teeth, and with their tail; nevertheless the 
Indians eat them, after having taken away the two extremities.” 
(Page 3, ed. Hakluyt Soc., 1859.) 
