Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstrait121878roya).pdf/144

 The specimen before us, however, is undoubtedly that variety and as such is of considerable interest, though the black marks between the scales are less defined than in Dr. Fayrers admirable drawing.

Such being all the available information I was able to collect on the subject of the Hamadryad you will easily understand that I was pleased to make the acquaintance of two gentlemen of this place, who had for some years devoted themselves to collecting and preserving such objects of Natural History as the extensive grounds surrounding their house in Sirangoon Road allowed them to capture. I mentioned to them my desire to come across a veritable specimen of O. Elaps and in a very few days was informed that they had as they believed one of these snakes in their collection. I was invited to inspect it and at first sight we had no doubt of the correctness of the identification. A detailed comparison of their specimen with Dr. Fayrer's plate in his "Thanatophidia of India" convinced me that the sought-for reptile was before us. I subjoin the narrative of its capture verbatim as furnished.

"My mandore "Manis" remembers the capture of the snake very well, as he had a very narrow escape of being bitten. The attack was quite unprovoked; in fact the first sign of the snake's presence was a loud hiss, aud the sight of the snake's head raised in the air on a level with his (the mandore's) breast. By jumping smartly back he evaded the spring of the hamadryad and succeeded by means of bamboos close at hand, and with the aid of the other gardeners close by, in getting the snake hell down to the ground until a noose was slipped round his head, in which state he was placed alive in a large bottle.

"I saw the snake alive in the bottle and it was only just dead from suffocation when I poured in the spirit to preserve it.

The mandore did not see the snake before, as it was coiled in a recess amongst the roots of a large soontal tree about 15 yards from our house, and he was approaching the house from the other side of the tree; the snake made his spring just as the man passed by. The man had been thirty years in Singapore at least (he is a Bawian,) but had never seen this sort of snake before. He knew however at once from descriptions given him by old Malays, and by men who lived in the jungle that it was a Tudong-korê kûning. He had often heard of this snake and knew it to be very deadly in its bite. He had heard that it was also called "Ular-muri" but does not think this last the correct name, as he says it is evidently allied to the Cobra;