156 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 



If moral characteristics be added to physical, the Loris is very 

 high in the scale ; for his manners are excellent, rather like those 

 of an old-fashioned child who does not play, but takes his 

 pleasure in some more dignified manner. For the Loris never 

 plays ; life is for him a very gerious matter. Except the Pan- 

 golin, all other animals I have kept or known, play, all but the 

 Loris. If one comes to think of it, any Loris who in his natural 

 haunts attracted attention by frisking about and playing, would 

 very soon be snapped up by an owl or other enemy, for he is 

 very weak, and very slow, and his safety, like that of a new boy 

 in a public school, must depend almost entirely on unostentatious 

 self-effacement. Hence his good manners. 



But besides modesty he has one other means of defence, and a 

 very curious one indeed it is. For he imitates a cobra. Before 

 relating the instance in which I saw this done, I must supportmy 

 testimony by the only reference to this habit that I know of. 

 Sinhalese of the North-Central Province have several times told 

 me little stories about the "Unahapuluwa," and I have thought 

 them far-fetched and absurd. And among the stories of its habits 

 told me by jungle men has been this : " That the Loris copies the 

 sound of the cobra as a means of self-defence." 



Now that I have had an opportunity of testing this story and 

 of finding it true, the other yarns do not seem so absurd. It 

 happened this way. 



I was sitting in the verandah spoiling my eyes by reading by 

 the last flicker of afterglow, when I heard the regular breathing 

 sound made by a cobra when he inflates and deflates his body. A 

 cobra moving ordinarily, or hunting anything much weaker than 

 himself, does not make this sound, but only when with expanded 

 hood he sits up to fight. 



With the breathing sound came the occasional quick hiss of a 

 strike. So I got up and took a stick , for I thought that a cobra 

 might be attacking my Loris, who was not in his cage, but only 

 tethered to the top of it. 



The sound came from my room, where, although it was dusk, 

 there was plenty of light to kill a snake. 



As I went into the room I looked at the cage, which was on the 

 floor, and on the top of it I saw the outline of a cobra sitting up 

 with hood expanded, and threatening a cat who crouched about 

 sixfeetaway. ThiswastheLoris, who, with his arms and shoulders 

 hunched up, was a sufficiently good imitation of a cobra to take 

 me in, as he swayed on his long legs, and every now and then let 

 out a perfect cobra's hiss. As I have said, it was dusk at the time, 

 but the Loris is nocturnal, so that his expedient would rarely be 



