E D I T O R ' S PREFACE.
THE present Fasciculus is the first of a projected Continuation of an Account
of East Indian Serpents, begun in the Description of the Coromandel Collection
lately published.
The Court of Directors considering it proper that an attempt should be
made to complete the account of those pernicious animals, by inviting and
encouraging research to be extended over the whole of British India, was
pleased to transmit instructions to the Presidencies abroad, pointing out in
detail the most probalale means of success; and to render the conveyance of
specimens, drawings, or other communications relative to Serpents, more easy,
and less precarious, it was regulated they should be sent home, addressed to
the Directors.
In these instructions, it was specially recommended to procure and send to
the India-House, specimens in spirits, descriptions, and coloured drawings,
of all such Serpents as were not comprehended in the Coromandel Collection;
and that the Medical Board should be instructed to solicit the free communication
of the cases of venomous bites, which future experience might furnish;
as likewise the result of experiments made for discovering the properties of
the poison, and the effects of medicinal applications.
An accurate discrimination of noxious from harmless Serpents, serves at the
same time to lessen the prevalent terror of their poison, and to assist decision
on the comparati\-e merit of remedies employed: and whatever improvements
may be expected in tlie medical treatment, must be ultimately established on
the aggregate of facts gradually collected from extensive experience.
Descriptions and drawings, from living or recent subjects, made on the
spot, are, no doubt preferable for ascertaining the species, to descriptions made
from speciurens preserved in spirits. But the former are not to be always
expected. Of persons in India disposed to furnish specimens, some may
harbour an aversion to handhng even the dead reptile; others, through