ipudians, _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 illustrate 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 tol