[Serpents.  The Pimberah of a prodigious bigness.] Of Serpents, there are these sorts.  The Pimberah, the body whereof is as big as a mans middle, and of a length proportionable.  It is not swift, but by subtilty will catch his prey; which are Deer or other Cattel; He lyes in the path where the Deer use to pass, and as they go, he claps hold of them by a kind of peg that growes on his tayl, with which he strikes them.  He will swallow a Roe Buck whole, horns and all; so that it happens sometimes the horns run thro his belly, and kill him.  A Stag was caught by one of these Pimberahs, which siesed him by the buttock, and held him so fast, that he could not get away, but ran a few steps this way and that way.  An Indian seeing the Stag run thus, supposed him in a snare, and having a Gun shot him; at which he gave so strong a jerk, that it pulled the Serpents head off while his tayl was encompassing a Tree to hold the Stag the better.

[The Polonga.] There is another venomous Snake called Polongo, the most venomous of all, that kills Cattel.  Two sorts of them I have seen, the one green, the other of a reddish gray, full of white rings along the sides, and about five or fix foot long.

[The Noya.] Another poysonous Snake there is called Noya, of a grayish colour, about four foot long.  This will stand with half his body upright two or three hours together, and spread his head broad open, where there appears like as it were a pair of spectacles painted on it.  The Indians call this Noy-Rogerati, that is, a Kings-Snake, that will do no harm.  But if the Polonga and the Noya meet together, they cease not fighting till one hath kill’d the other.

[The Fable of the Noya and Polonga.] The reason and original of this fatal enmity between these two Serpents, is this, according to a Fable among the Chingulays.  These two chanced to meet in a dry Season, when water was scarce.  The Polonga being almost famished for thirst, asked the Noya, where he might go to find a little water.  The Noya a little before had met with a bowl of water in which a Child lay playing.  As it is usual among this people to wash their Children in a bowl of water, and there leave them to tumble and play in it.  Here the Noya quenched his thirst, but as he was drinking, the Child that lay in the bowl, out of his innocency and play, hit him on the Head with his hand, which the Noya made no matter of but bare patiently, knowing it was not done out of any malice:  and having drunk as much as sufficed him, went away without doing the Child any harm.

Being minded to direct the Polonga to this bowl, but desirous withal to preserve the Child, he told him, That he knew of water, but that he was such a surly hasty creature, that he was fearful to let him know where it was, lest he might do some mischief; Making him therefore promise that he would not, he then told him, that at such a place there was a bowl of water with a Child playing in it, and that probably the Child