Footnote 3161: [(return)]
Account of the Interior of Ceylon, ch. iii. p. 101.
Footnote 3171: [(return)]
Thunberg, vol. i. p. 155. Since the foregoing account was published, I have received a note from Mr. HARDY, relative to the piedra ponsona, the snake-stone of Mexico, in which he gives the following account of the method of preparing and applying it: "Take a piece of hart's horn of any convenient size and shape; cover it well round with grass or hay, enclose both in a thin piece of sheet copper well wrapped round them, and place the parcel in a charcoal fire till the bone is sufficiently charred.
"When cold, remove the calcined horn from its envelope, when it will be ready for immediate use. In this state it will resemble a solid black fibrous substance, of the same shape and size as before it was subjected to this treatment.
"USE.—The wound being slightly punctured, apply the bone to the opening, to which it will adhere firmly for the space of two minutes; and when it falls, it should be received into a basin of water. It should then be dried in a cloth, and again applied to the wound. But it will not adhere longer than about one minute. In like manner it may be applied a third time; but now it will fall almost immediately, and nothing will cause it to adhere any more.
"These effects I witnessed in the case of a bite of a rattle-snake at Oposura, a town in the province of Sonora, in Mexico, from whence I obtained my recipe; and I have given other particulars respecting it in my Travels in the Interior of Mexico, published in 1830. R.W.H. HARDY. Bath, 30th January, 1860."
Footnote 3181: [(return)]
A Singhalese variety of the Rana cutipora? and the Malabar bull-frog, Hylarana Malabarica. A frog named by BLYTH Rana robusta proves to be a Ceylon specimen of the R. cutipora.
Footnote 3182: [(return)]
R. Kandiana, Kelaart.
Footnote 3191: [(return)]
Polypedates maculatus, Gray.
Footnote 3192: [(return)]
Bufo melanostictus, Schneid.
Footnote 3193: [(return)]
In Ceylon this error is as old as the third century, B.C., when, as the Mahawanso tells us, the wife of "King Asoka attempted to destroy the great bo-tree (at Magadha) with, the poisoned fang of a toad."—Ch. xx. p. 122.
Footnote 3201: [(return)]
A few Batrachians, such as the Siren of Carolina, the Proteus of Illyria, the Axolotl of Mexico, and the Menobranchus of the North American Lakes, retain their gills during life; but although provided with lungs in mature age, they are not capable of living out of the water. Such batrachians form an intermediate link between reptiles and fishes.