Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon Part 27

[Footnote 4: Daboia elegans, _Daud._]

[Footnote 5: Naja tripudians, _Merr._]

[Footnote 6: Trigonocephalus hypnale, _Merr._]

In like manner, the _tic-polonga_, particularised by Dr. Davy, is said to be but one out of seven varieties of that formidable reptile. The word "tic" means literally the "spotted" polonga, from the superior clearness of the markings on its scales. Another, the _nidi_, or "sleeping" polonga, is so called from the fact that a person bitten by it is soon prostrated by a lethargy from which he never awakes.[1] These formidable serpents so infested the official residence of the District Judge of Trincomalie in 1858, as to compel his family to abandon it. In another instance, a friend of mine, going hastily to take a supply of wafers from an open tin case which stood in his office, drew back his hand, on finding the box occupied by a tic-polonga coiled within it.

During my residence in Ceylon, I never heard of the death of a European which was caused by the bite of a snake; and in the returns of coroners'

inquests made officially to my department, such accidents to the natives appear chiefly to have happened at night, when the animal, having been surprised or trodden on, inflicted the wound in self-defence.[2] For these reasons the Singhalese, when obliged to leave their houses in the dark, carry a stick with a loose ring, the noise[3] of which as they strike it on the ground is sufficient to warn the snakes to leave their path.

[Footnote 1: The other varieties are the _getta, lay, alu, kunu,_ and _nil-polongas._ I have heard of an eighth, the _palla-polonga_.

Amongst the numerous pieces of folk-lore in Ceylon in connexion with snakes, is the belief that a deadly enmity subsists between the polonga and the cobra de capello, and that the latter, which is naturally shy and retiring, is provoked to conflicts by the audacity of its rival.

Hence the proverb applied to persons at enmity, that "they hate like the polonga and cobra."

The Singhalese believe the polonga to be by far the most savage and wanton of the two, and they ill.u.s.trate this by a popular legend, that once upon a time a child, in the absence of its mother, was playing beside a tub of water, which a cobra, impelled by thirst during a long-continued drought, approached to drink, the unconscious child all the while striking it with its hands to prevent the intrusion. The cobra, on returning, was met by a tic-polonga, which seeing its scales dripping with delicious moisture, entreated to be told the way to the well. The cobra, knowing the vicious habits of the other snake, and antic.i.p.ating that it would kill the innocent child which it had so recently spared, at first refused, and only yielded on condition that the infant was not to be molested. But the polonga, on reaching the tub, was no sooner obstructed by the little one, than it stung him to death.]

[Footnote 2: In a return of 112 coroners' inquests, in cases of death from wild animals, held in Ceylon in five years, from 1851 to 1855 inclusive, 68 are ascribed to the bites of serpents; and in almost every instance the a.s.sault is set down as having taken place _at night_. The majority of the sufferers were children and women.]

[Footnote 3: PLINY notices that the serpent has the sense of hearing more acute than that of sight; and that it is more frequently put in motion by the sound of footsteps than by the appearance of the intruder, "excitatur pede saepius."--Lib, viii. c. 36.]

_Cobra de Capello._--The cobra de capello is the only one exhibited by the itinerant snake-charmers: and the truth of Davy's conjecture, that they control it, not by extracting its fangs, but by courageously availing themselves of its well-known timidity and extreme reluctance to use its fatal weapons, received a painful confirmation during my residence in Ceylon, by the death of one of these performers, whom his audience had provoked to attempt some unaccustomed familiarity with the cobra; it bit him on the wrist, and he expired the same evening. The hill near Kandy, on which the official residences of the Governor and Colonial Secretary are built, is covered in many places with the deserted nests of the white ants (_termites_), and these are the favourite retreats of the sluggish and spiritless cobra, which watches from their apertures the toads and lizards on which it preys. Here, when I have repeatedly come upon them, their only impulse was concealment; and on one occasion, when a cobra of considerable length could not escape, owing to the bank being nearly precipitous on both sides of the road, a few blows from my whip were sufficient to deprive it of life.[1]

[Footnote 1: A Singhalese work, the _Sarpados[=a]_, enumerates four castes of the cobra;--the _raja_, or king: the _bamunu_, or Brahman; the _velanda_, or trader; and the _gori_, or agriculturist. Of these the raja, or "king of the cobras," is said to have the head and the anterior half of the body of so light a colour, that at a distance it seems like a silvery white. The work is quoted, but not correctly, in the _Ceylon Times_ for January, 1857. It is more than probable, as the division represents the four castes of the Hindus, Chastriyas, Brahmans Vaisyas, and Sudras; that the insertion of the _gori_ instead of the latter was a pious fraud of some copyist to confer rank upon the Vellales, the agricultural caste of Ceylon.]

A gentleman who held a civil appointment at Kornegalle, had a servant who was bitten by a snake and he informed me that on enlarging a hole near the foot of the tree under which the accident occurred, he unearthed a cobra of upwards of three feet long, and so purely white as to induce him to believe that it was an albino. With the exception of the _rat-snake_[1], the cobra de capello is the only serpent which seems from choice to frequent the vicinity of human dwellings, doubtless attracted by the young of the domestic fowl and by the moisture of the wells and drainage.

[Footnote 1: _Coryphodon Blumenbachii._ There is a belief in Ceylon that the bite of the rat-snake, though harmless to man, is fatal to black cattle. The Singhalese add that it would be equally so to man were the wound to be touched by cow-dung. WOLF, in the interesting story of his _Life and Adventures in Ceylon_, mentions that rat-snakes were often so domesticated by the native as to feed at their table. He says: "I once saw an example of this in the house of a native. It being meal time, he called his snake, which immediately came forth from the roof under which he and I were sitting. He gave it victuals from his own dish, which the snake took of itself from off a fig-leaf that was laid for it, and ate along with its host. When it had eaten its fill, he gave it a kiss, and bade it go to its hole." Major SKINNER, writing to me 12th Dec., 1858, mentions the still more remarkable case of the domestication of the cobra de capello in Ceylon. "Did you ever hear," he says, "of tame cobras being kept and domesticated about a house, going in and out at pleasure, and in common with the rest of the inmates? In one family, near Negombo, cobras are kept as protectors, in the place of dogs, by a wealthy man who has always large sums of money in his house. But this is not a solitary case of the kind. I heard of it only the other day, but from undoubtedly good authority. The snakes glide about the house, a terror to thieves, but never attempting to harm the inmates."]

The young cobras, it is said, in the _Sarpa-dosa_, are not venomous till after the thirteenth day, when they shed their coat for the first time.

The Singhalese remark that if one cobra be destroyed near a house, its companion is almost certain to be discovered immediately after,--a popular belief which I had an opportunity of verifying on more than one occasion. Once, when a snake of this description was killed in a bath of the Government House at Colombo, its mate was found in the same spot the day after; and again, at my own stables, a cobra of five feet long, having fallen into the well, which was too deep to permit its escape, its companion of the same size was found the same morning in an adjoining drain.[1] On this occasion the snake, which had been several hours in the well, swam with ease, raising its head and hood above water; and instances have repeatedly occurred of the cobra de capello voluntarily taking considerable excursions by sea. When the "Wellington," a government vessel employed in the conservancy of the pearl banks, was anch.o.r.ed about a quarter of a mile from the land, in the bay of Koodremale, a cobra was seen, about an hour before sunset, swimming vigorously towards the ship. It came within twelve yards, when the sailors a.s.sailed it with billets of wood and other missiles, and forced it to return to land. The following morning they discovered the track which it had left on the sh.o.r.e, and traced it along the sand till it was lost in the jungle. On a later occasion, in the vicinity of the same spot, when the "Wellington" was lying at some distance from the sh.o.r.e, a cobra was found and killed on board, where it could only have gained access by climbing up the cable. It was first discovered by a sailor, who felt the chill as it glided over his foot.

[Footnote 1: PLINY notices the affection that subsists between the male and female asp; and that if one of them happens to be killed, the other seeks to avenge its death.--Lib. viii. c. 37.]

One curious tradition in Ceylon embodies the popular legend, that the stomach of the cobra de capello occasionally contains a precious stone of such unapproachable brilliancy as to surpa.s.s all known jewels. This inestimable stone is called the _n[=a]ga-m[=a]nik-kya_; but not one snake in thousands is supposed to possess such a treasure. The cobra, before eating, is believed to cast it up and conceal it for the moment; else its splendour, like a flambeau, would attract all beholders. The tales of the peasantry, in relation to it, all turn upon the devices of those in search of the gem, and the vigilance and cunning of the cobra by which they are baffled; the reptile itself being more enamoured of the priceless jewel than even its most ardent pursuers.

In BENNETT'S account of "_Ceylon and its Capabilities_," there is another curious piece of Singhalese folk-lore, to the effect, that the cobra de capello every time it expends its poison _loses a joint of its tail_, and eventually acquires a head resembling that of a toad. A recent addition to zoological knowledge has thrown light on the origin of this popular fallacy. The family of "false snakes" (_pseudo typhlops_, as Schlegel names the group) have till lately consisted of but three species, of which only one was known to inhabit Ceylon. They belong to a family intermediate between the serpents and that Saurian group-commonly called _Slow-worms_ or _Gla.s.s-snakes_; they in fact represent the slow-worms of the temperate regions in Ceylon. They have the body of a snake, but the cleft of their mouth is very narrow, and they are unable to detach the lateral parts of the lower jaw from each other, as the true snakes do when devouring a prey. The most striking character of the group, however, is the size and form of the tail; this is very short, and according to the observations of Professor Peters of Berlin[1], shorter in the female than in the male. It does not terminate in a point as in other snakes, but is truncated obliquely, the abrupt surface of its extremity being either entirely flat, or more or less convex, and always covered with rough keels. The reptile a.s.sists its own movements by pressing the rough end to the ground, and from this peculiar form of the tail, the family has received the name of _Uropeltidae_, or "Shield-tails." Within a very recent period important additions have been made to this family. which now consists of four genera and eleven species. Those occurring in Ceylon are enumerated in the List appended to this chapter. One of these, the _Uropeltis grandis_ of Kelaart[2], is distinguished by its dark brown colour, shot with a bluish metallic l.u.s.tre, closely approaching the ordinary shade of the cobra; and the tail is abruptly and flatly compressed as though it had been severed by a knife. The form of this singular reptile will be best understood by a reference to the accompanying figure; and there can, I think, be little doubt that to its strange and anomalous structure is to be traced the fable of the transformation of the cobra de capello. The colour alone would seem to identify the two reptiles, but the head and mouth are no longer those of a serpent, and the disappearance of the tail might readily suggest the mutilation which the tradition a.s.serts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE UROPELTIS PHILIPPINUS.]

[Footnote 1: PETERS, _De Serpentum familia Uropeltaceorum_. Berol, 4.

1861.]

[Footnote 2: The _Uropeltis grandis_ of Kelaart, which was at first supposed to be a new species, proves to be identical with _U.

Phillippinus_ of Cuvier. It is doubtful, however, whether this species be found in the Phillippine Islands, as stated by Cuvier; and it is more than, probable that the typical specimen came from Ceylon--a further ill.u.s.tration of the affinity of the fauna of Ceylon to that of the Eastern Archipelago. The characteristics of this reptile, as given by Dr. GRAY, are as follows:--"Caudal disc subcircular, with large scattered tubercles; snout subacute, slightly produced. Dark brown, lighter below, with some of the scales dark brown in the centre near the posterior edge. GRAY, _Proceed. Zool. Soc._ 1858, p. 262.]

The Singhalese Buddhists, in their religious abstinence from inflicting death on any creature, are accustomed, after securing a venomous snake, to enclose it in a basket woven of palm leaves, and to set it afloat on a river.

_The Python._--The great python[1] (the "boa," as it is commonly designated by Europeans, the "anaconda" of Eastern story), which is supposed to crush the bones of an elephant, and to swallow the tiger, is found, though not of such portentous dimensions, in the cinnamon gardens within a mile of the fort of Colombo, where it feeds on hog-deer, and other smaller animals.

[Footnote 1: Python reticulatus, _Gray_.]

The natives occasionally take it alive, and securing it to a pole expose it for sale as a curiosity. One that was brought to me tied in this way measured seventeen feet with a proportionate thickness: but one more fully grown, which crossed my path on a coffee estate on the Peac.o.c.k Mountain at Pusilawa, considerably exceeded these dimensions. Another which I watched in the garden at Elie House, near Colombo, surprised me by the ease with which it erected itself almost perpendicularly in order to scale a wall upwards of ten feet high.

The Singhalese a.s.sert that when it has swallowed a deer, or any animal of similarly inconvenient bulk, the python draws itself through the narrow aperture between two trees, in order to crush the bones and a.s.sist in the process of deglut.i.tion.

It is a singular fact that the small and innocuous ground-snakes called _Calamariae_, which abound on the continent of India and in the islands are not to be found in Ceylon; where they would appear to be replaced by two singular genera, the _Aspidura_ and _Haplocercus_, These latter have only one series of shields below the tail, whilst most other harmless snakes (_Calamaria_ included) have a double series of sub-candals. The _Aspidura_ has been known to naturalists for many years[1]; the _Haplocercus_ of Ceylon has only recently been described by Dr. Gunther, and of it not more than three existing specimens are known: hence its habits and the extent of its distribution over the island are still left in uncertainty.[2]

[Footnote 1: Boie in Isis 1827 p. 517.]

[Footnote 2: GuNTH. _Col. Snakes_, p. 14. In the hope that some inquirer in Ceylon will be able to furnish such information as may fill up this blank in the history of the haplocercus, the following particulars are here appended. The largest of the specimens in the British Museum is about twenty-five inches in length; the body thin, and much elongated; the head narrow, and not distinct from the neck, the tail of moderate length. Forehead covered by three shields, one anterior and two posterior frontals; no loreal shield; one small shield before, two behind the eye; seven shields along the upper lip, the eye being above the fourth. The scales are disposed in seventeen longitudinal series; they are lanceolate and strongly keeled. The upper parts are uniform blackish or brown, with two dorsal rows of small indistinct black spots; occiput with a whitish collar, edged with darker. The lower parts uniform yellowish.]

Of ten species of snakes that ascend trees in Ceylon to search for squirrels and lizards, and to rifle the nests of birds, one half, including the green _carawala_, and the deadly _tic polonga_, are believed by the natives to be venomous; but the truth of this is very dubious. I have heard of the cobra being found on the crown of a coco-nut palm, attracted, it was said, by the toddy which was flowing at the time, it being the season for drawing it. Surrounding Elie House, near Colombo, in which I resided, were a number of tall _casuarinas_ and India-rubber trees, whose branches almost touched the lattices of the window of the room in which I usually sat. These were a favourite resort of the tree-snakes, and in the early morning the numbers which clung to them were sometimes quite remarkable. I had thus an opportunity of observing the action of these creatures, which seems to me one of vigilance rather than of effort, the tongue being in perpetual activity, as if it were an organ of feeling; and in those in which the nose is elongated, a similar mobility and restlessness, especially when alarmed, affords evidence of the same faculty.

The general characteristic of the Tree-snake is an exceedingly thin and delicate body, often adorned with colours exquisite as those of the foliage amongst which they live concealed. In some of the South American species the tints vie in brilliancy with those of the humming-birds; whilst their forms are so flexible and slender as to justify the name conferred on them of "_whip-snakes_." The Siamese, to denote these combinations of grace and splendour, call them "Sun-beams." A naturalist[1], describing a bright green species in Brazil (_Philodryas viridissimus_), writes: "I am always delighted when I find that another tree-snake has settled in my garden. You look for a bird's nest, the young ones have gone, but you find their bed occupied by one of these beautiful creatures, which will coil up its body of two feet in length within a s.p.a.ce no larger than the hollow of your hand. They appear to be always watchful; for at the instant you discover one, the quick playing of the long, black, forked tongue will show you that you too are observed. On perceiving the slightest sign of your intention to disturb it, the snake will dart upwards through the branches and over the leaves which scarcely appear to bend beneath the weight. A moment more, and you have lost sight of it. Whenever I return to Europe, you may be sure that in my hot-house those harmless, lovely creatures shall not be missing."

[Footnote 1: Dr. WUCHERER of Bahia.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: TREE SNAKE. Pa.s.serita fusca.]

Ceylon has several species of Tree-snakes, and one of the most common is the green _Pa.s.serita_, easily recognized from its bright colour and from the pointed moveable appendage, into which the snout is prolonged. The snakes of this genus being active chiefly during the night, the pupil of the eye is linear and horizontal. They never willingly descend from trees, but prey there upon nocturnal Saurians, geckoes, small birds and their young; and they are perfectly harmless, although they often try to bite. It is strange that none of the numerous specimens which it has been attempted to bring to Europe have ever fed in captivity; whilst in South America they take their food freely in confinement, provided that some green plants are placed in their cage.

In Ceylon I have never seen any specimen of a larger size than three feet; whilst they are known to attain to more than five on the Indian Continent.

The inference is obvious, that the green coloration of the majority of tree-snakes has more or less connection with their habits and mode of life. Indeed, whenever a green-coloured snake is observed, it may at once be p.r.o.nounced, if slender or provided with a prehensile tail, to be of the kind which pa.s.ses its life on trees; but if it be short-bodied then it lives on the prairies. There are nevertheless tree-snakes which have a very different coloration; and one of the most remarkable species is the _Pa.s.serita fusca_ or _Dryinus fuscus_, of which a figure is annexed. It closely resembles the green Pa.s.serita in form, so that naturalists have considered it to be a mere variety. It is entirely of a shining brown, shot with purple, and the yellow longitudinal stripe which runs along the side of the belly of the green species, is absent in this one. It is much more rare than the green one, and does not appear to be found in Hindostan: no intermediate forms have been observed in Ceylon.

_Water-Snakes._--The fresh-water snakes, of which several species[1]

inhabit the still waters and pools, are all harmless in Ceylon. A gentleman, who found near a river an agglutinated cl.u.s.ter of the eggs of one variety (_Tropidophis schistosus_), placed them under a gla.s.s shade on his drawing-room table, where one by one the young reptiles emerged from the sh.e.l.l to the number of twenty.

[Footnote 1: Chersydrus granulatus, _Merr_.; Cerberus cinereus. _Daud._; Tropidophis schistosus, _Daud._]

The _sea-snakes_ of the Indian tropics did not escape the notice of the early Greek mariners who navigated those seas; and amongst the facts collected by them, aelian has briefly recorded that the Indian Ocean produces serpents _with flattened tails_[1], whose bite, he adds, is to be dreaded less for its venom than the laceration of its teeth. The first statement is accurate, but the latter is incorrect, as there is an all but unanimous concurrence of opinion that every species of this family of serpents is more or less poisonous. The compression of the tail noticed by aelian is one of the princ.i.p.al characteristics of these reptiles, as their motion through the water is mainly effected by its aid, coupled with the undulating movement of the rest of the body. Their scales, instead of being imbricated like those of land-snakes, form hexagons; and those on the belly, instead of being scutate and enlarged, are nearly of the same size and form as on other parts of the body.

[Footnote 1: "[Greek: Plateis tas ouras]." aeLIAN, L. xvi. c. 8.

aelian speaks elsewhere of fresh-water snakes. His remark on the compression of the tail shows that his informants were aware of this speciality in those that inhabit the sea.]

Sea-snakes (_Hydrophis_) are found on all the coasts of Ceylon. I have sailed through large shoals of them in the Gulf 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 recently made to place a lighthouse on the great rocks of the south-east coast, known by seamen as the Ba.s.ses[1], or _Baxos_, the workmen who first landed found the portion of the surface liable to be covered by the tides, honeycombed, 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 themselves 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]

[Footnote 1: The Ba.s.ses are believed to be the remnants of the great island of Giri, swallowed up by the sea.--_Mahawanso_, ch. i. p. 4. They may possibly be the _Ba.s.sae_ of Ptolemy's map of _Taprobane_.]

[Footnote 2: Official Report to the Governor of Ceylon.]

Still, sea-snakes, though well-known to the natives, are not abundant round Ceylon, as compared with their numbers in other places. Their princ.i.p.al habitat is the ocean between the southern sh.o.r.es 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 on the western sh.o.r.es of tropical America. And if, as has been stated[1], they have been seen on a late occasion in considerable numbers in the Bay of Panama, the fact can only be regarded as one of the rare instances, in which a change in the primary distribution of a race of animals has occurred, either by an active or a pa.s.sive immigration. Being exclusively inhabitants of the sea, they are liable to be swept along by the influence of currents; but to compensate for this they have been endowed with a wonderful power of swimming. The individuals of all the groups of terrestrial serpents are observed to be possessed of this faculty to a greater or a less degree; and they can swim for a certain distance without having any organs specially modified for the purpose; except, perhaps, the lung, which is a long sac capable of taking in a sufficient quant.i.ty of air, to keep the body of the snake above water.

Nor do we find any peculiar or specially adapted organs even in the freshwater-snakes, although they can catch frogs or fishes while swimming. But in the _hydrophids_, which are permanent inhabitants of the ocean, and which in an adult state, approach the beach only occasionally, and for very short times, the tail, which is rounded and tapering in the others, is compressed into a vertical rudder-like organ, similar to, and answering all the purposes of, the caudal fin in a fish.

When these snakes are brought on sh.o.r.e or on the deck of a ship, they are helpless and struggle vainly in awkward att.i.tudes. Their food consists exclusively of such fishes as are found near the surface; a fact which affords ample proof that they do not descend to great depths, although they can dive as well as swim. They are often found in groups during calm weather, sleeping on the sea; but owing to their extreme caution and shyness, attempts to catch them are rarely successful; on the least alarm, they suddenly expel the air from their lungs and descend below the surface; a long stream of rising air-bubbles marking the rapid course which they make below. Their poisonous nature has been questioned; but the presence of a strong perforated tooth and of a venomous gland sufficiently attest their dangerous powers, even if these had not been demonstrated by the effects of their bite. But fortunately for the fishermen, who sometimes find them unexpectedly among the contents of their nets, sea-snakes are unable, like other venomous serpents, to open the jaws widely, and in reality they rarely inflict a wound. Dr. Cantor believes, that, they are blinded by the light when removed from their own element; and he adds that they become sluggish and speedily die.[2]

[Footnote 1: Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858.]