492 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



a bird in its moutli, making off through some light hushes^ where 

 it had probably seized the bird, though it had not had time to 

 swallow it. We very soon disabled the snake by a blow on the 

 back ; but as it was by no means dead we secured it with a small 

 rope, and dragged it into the portico of the bungalow for the sake 

 of trying experiments with it. We sent for one of the numerous 

 village dogs called pariahs, but the snake would not look at the 

 dog. A fowl was then brought and placed with its legs tied, near 

 the snake's head. The snake revived a little, and made a dart at 

 the fowl, but the bird evaded it, and struggling to its feet it gave 

 the cobra a fierce peck on the head, which quite decided the battle. 

 The fact was that the snake was too much injured by the blow on 

 the spine that had disabled it ; and, moreover, it had probably 

 spent its freshness and most deadly venom in killing the small 

 bird which it had seized before we saw it. Many years afterward 

 I saw a cobra bite a fowl, and turned to look at my watch to see 

 how long it would be before the poison took effect. As I looked 

 back again toward the fowl it fell down quite dead, within thirty 

 seconds from the time it was bitten. This occurred in the house 

 of a friend who had engaged an itinerant snake-charmer to exhibit 

 snakes to a party of guests. Several cobras, deprived of their poi- 

 sonous fangs, had been exhibited in the usual manner, when the 

 snake-charmer stated that he had with him a snake of which the 

 poisonous fangs were intact, and he offered to show it. He dealt 

 with it very carefully with a forked stick in producing it from a 

 basket, and he was equally cautious when he placed the fowl near 

 enough to the snake to be bitten by it. What the result of the 

 bite was to the fowl has been already told. There can be little 

 doubt that if this cobra had managed to bite its keeper or any of 

 the spectators, with its fangs fully charged with fresh venom, it 

 would have been almost if not quite impossible to save their life. 



It is always expedient in India to have a dog or a cat or a mun- 

 goose (a sort of ichneumon) about the house to keep away snakes, 

 or to draw attention to them when they are crawling about. My 

 wife's dog probably saved her life by barking at two snakes which 

 had got into her dressing-room. A cat with kittens once drew 

 my attention, by her extraordinary antics, to a large cobra, which 

 she was trying to keep away from her young ones. The mungoose 

 is the professional enemy of the snake, and goes for him at once 

 to kill him, and perhaps to eat him. There is no valid foundation 

 for the belief that the mungoose has recourse to an antidote to 

 protect itself against a snake's venom. The mungoose relies on 

 his own agility and sharp teeth, and on the coarse hair of his skin, 

 which will avert most snake-bites. But if the snake gets well 

 home, so as to lodge his poison in the mungoose's skin, that mun- 

 goose will surely die. It is not dissimilar to the case of the com- 



