he same spot, notwithstanding
that at each visit she had to undergo a repetition of this torture. In
the year 1826, a hawksbill turtle was taken near Hambangtotte, which
bore a ring attached to one of its fins that had been placed there by a
Dutch officer thirty years before, with a view to establish the fact of
these recurring visits to the same beach.[3]

[Footnote 1: Chelonia imbricata; _Linn_.]

[Footnote 2: At Celebes, whence the finest tortoise-shell is exported to
China, the natives kill the turtle by blows on the head, and immerse the
shell in boiling water to detach the plates. Dry heat is only resorted
to by the unskilful, who frequently destroy the tortoise-shell in the
operation.--_Journ. Indian Archipel._ vol. iii. p. 227, 1849.]

[Footnote 3: BENNETT'S _Ceylon_, ch. xxxiv.]

_Snakes_.--It is perhaps owing to the aversion excited by the ferocious
expression and unusual action of serpents, combined with an instinctive
dread of attack, that exaggerated ideas prevail both as to their numbers
in Ceylon, and the danger to be apprehended from encountering them. The
Singhalese profess to distinguish a great many kinds, of which not more
than one half have as yet been scientifically identified; but so
cautiously do serpents make their appearance, that the surprise of long
residents is invariably expressed at the rarity with which they are to
be seen; and from my own journeys, through the jungle, often of two to
five hundred miles, I have frequently returned without seeing a single
snake.[1] Davy, whose attention was carefully directed to the poisonous
serpents of Ceylon[2], came to the conclusion that but _four_, out of
twenty species examined by him, were venomous, and that of these only
two (the _tic-polonga[3]_ and _cobra de capello_[4]) were capable of
inflicting a wound likely to be fatal to man. The third is the
_caraicilla_[5], a brown snake of about twelve inches in length; and for
the fourth, of which only a few specimens have been, procured, the
Singhalese have no name in their vernacular,--a proof that it is neither
deadly nor abundant.

[Footnote 1: Mr. Bennett, who resided much in the south-east of the
island, ascribes the rarity of serpents in the jungle to the abundance
of the wild peafowl, whose partiality to snakes renders them the chief
destroyers of these reptiles.]

[Footnote 2: See DAVY'S _Ceylon_, ch. xiv.]

[Footnote 3: Dabois elegans, _Grey_.]

[Footnote 4: Naja tripadians, _Gunther