The venom forwarded by us to France has been exclusively derived from the cobra, or _Naja tripudians_. Other venomous serpents are found in the French Settlements in India, especially the species of _Hydrophis_, or sea-snakes; but the cobra is by far the commonest species, and our trading stations teem with it. Yanaon is infested by it at all seasons, but especially at the time when the Godavari is in flood; the reptiles then make their way towards spots spared by the inundation, and the natives frequently kill them in their houses. Thus M. Mariapregassam, the Sanitary Officer in charge of the the Medical Service of this dependency, was in a position to procure for us, at the very commencement of our operations, important doses of venom: it should be added that he acquitted himself of this task with a perseverance and devotion worthy of the fullest recognition. Of the 653 cobras captured between August 1, 1901, and February 23, 1903, 229, or more than one-third, were furnished by Yanaon. Moreover, the cost price of the cobra fell in proportion to its numbers, and Yanaon paid for its snakes on the average at the rate of 33 centimes apiece; while at Chandarnagar and Pondicherry the snake-charmers frequently received 1 rupee (1 franc 67 centimes) per reptile, though it is true that even this was an extremely poor remuneration, when we consider the risk of the calling. Again, owing to the limited amount of our grants, we were obliged to restrict our expenditure, regulating the purchase-price of the snakes according to the quantity of venom collected. Thus at Pondicherry, having observed that each cobra yielded on an average twenty drops of venom, we fixed the value of two drops at one _fanon_ (one-eighth of a rupee), never more. In this way it was decidedly to the snake-charmer’s interest to bring us fresh snakes, and not such as had been previously deprived of their venom. In spite of this new regulation, snakes continued to pour into the hospital, and several were repeatedly brought to us at the same time; in October and November, 1902, the figure 9 appears three times in our statistics. The combined results of the snake-harvest at our five settlements, from August 1, 1901, to February 23, 1903, are shown in the following table:-- Average weight Average Average Quantity of dry price price Number Sum of venom venom of the of 1 gramme of cobras expended collected per cobra cobra of venom 653 R. 446 242 0·37 R. 0.68 R. 1.84 grammes gramme (1.13 fr.) (3.07 fr.)