to bite, but other observations tend to prove that this mildness must not be relied on.
M. Peron saw the Marine Serpents gliding gracefully along in great numbers on the surface of the Indian Seas, waging destructive warfare on shoals of small herrings, which fled precipitately into deeper water. In the stomachs of some which he captured, he found small fishes and various species of marine crustacea. The Serpents, in their turn, become the prey of sharks,—a fact which at first seems remarkable, when we consider the swift agility of the former contrasted with the unwieldiness of the latter; but the naturalist accounts for the fact by supposing that the prey is seized when asleep on the surface. So sound are their slumbers as they float on the waves, that a large ship may pass close among them, without awaking them by the surging of its prow, or by the voices of its crew. They swim and dive with equal facility; often at the very instant when the voyagers are throwing their nets over the slippery reptiles, they will disappear beneath the waves, diving to a great depth, and remaining more than half an hour without ascending to the surface, reappearing at length, at a very great distance from the spot where they had been seen to descend.
The salt water creeks and ditches on the shores of India and the great islands are greatly infested by the Sea-Snakes, and this is probably what Cuvier means when he affirms that the Chersydrus inhabits the bottoms of rivers in Java; for no species inhabits fresh water.
Mr. Gray observes of the geographical distribution of the Family, that of the forty-eight species
