Snakes.
29 snakes belonging to 20 genera are recorded as existing in the Colony. Of these six are venomous but this does not mean that one of every five snakes seen is a venomous species for the harmless species greatly outnumber the poisonous ones. Probably individuals of the three genera Natrix, Elaphe and Ptyas exceed all the rest put together.
The venomous species are the Hamadryad or King Cobra, the Cobra, a Coral Snake, the Banded Krait, a smaller Black and White Banded Krait and the Bamboo Snake. No adult has ever been known to die from the bite of a Bamboo Snake, the commonest of the venomous species. This snake is bright green above, yellow below with a brown stripe on the top of the tail and often with a bluish nose. It is a pit-viper related to the rattlesnakes of North America and is easy to recognize by the small scales on the top of the head and the pit, or depression, in the side of the head between eye and nostril. The smaller Krait is deadly but fatalities are rare. Cobras can be very savage if cornered but rarely bite people and no deaths are on record. The local cobra when adult is glossy black and can be recognized by its colour and its hood with eye marking and white under head and neck. The larger krait is banded black and yellow, the smaller krait black and white; both have a keel along the back, are day blind and will only bite if severely provoked.
In addition to the front-fanged venomous species there are five other species with fangs at the back of the upper jaw connected by a duct with venom glands. These snakes are harmless to man and would probably find difficulty in injecting venom unless they bit a finger.
The harmless snakes include the primitive Python which grows to a very large size. Another is the primitive and degenerate Iron Wire Snake which grows to a length of a few inches and looks like a piece of iron wire. It is nearly blind, its tail ends in a sharp point and it lives on earthworms.
Sea-snakes visit waters of the Colony in the summer. They are very venomous indeed but are inoffensive creatures and would not attack bathers.
Crocodiles, Turtles and Lizards.
The Estuarine Crocodile used to inhabit the Canton Delta and the Hong Kong neighbourhood but has now apparently been exterminated from the district,
the district, no specimen
no specimen having come to light since 1912. Local belief has it-erroneously-that crocodiles and sharks do not get on well together and the reason why large sharks do not occur in Hong Kong waters is that they fear the crocodiles and do not know that they have left the district. Perhaps the sharks learnt during the war, when there was no dearth of food, that there were no crocodiles, for since then three people have been bitten by large fish; the first accident, and the only fatality, undoubtedly was caused by a
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