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.[3001] 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 anchored about a quarter of a mile from the land, in the bay of Koodremalé, a cobra was seen, about an hour before sunset, swimming vigorously towards the ship. It came within twelve yards, when the sailors assailed 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 shore, 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 shore, 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.
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 surpass all known jewels. This inestimable stone is called the nāga-mānik-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 Glass-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[3021], 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 assists 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 Uropeltidæ, 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[3031], is distinguished by its dark brown colour, shot with a bluish metallic lustre, 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 asserts.
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[3032] (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.
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 Peacock 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 assert 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 assist in the process of deglutition.
It is a singular fact that the small and innocuous ground-snakes called Calamariæ, 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[3041]; the Haplocercus of Ceylon has only recently been described by Dr. Günther, 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.[3051]