THE HAJE, OR EGYPTIAN ASP. (Naja Haje.)
The Haje, or Egyptian Asp, is from three to six feet in length; it has two teeth longer than the rest, through which the venom flows. The body is covered with small round scales, and is of a greenish colour, bordered with brown; its neck is capable of inflation. The jugglers of Egypt, by pressing this Asp on the nape of the neck with the finger, throw the animal into a kind of catalepsy, which renders it stiff and immovable; when they say that they have changed it into a rod. The habit which this species has of raising itself up when approached, induced the ancient Egyptians to believe that it guarded the fields where it was found; and it is sculptured on the gates of their temples as an emblem of the protecting divinity of the world.