66 REPTILES AND BIRDS. 
Dr. Giinther remarks that, ‘singuiarly enough, it has never been 
obtained in the Valley of Nepal.’ This is very easily accounted for,” 
continues Mr. Theobald, “since few would venture to kill a cobra, 
even for scientific purposes, in the rigorously Hindu State of Nepal. 
In British India, decent Hindus will not kill a cobra; and if one 
has taken up his abode in a house, it is permitted to remain, or else 
carefully inveigled into an earthen pot, and carried away as described. 
Of course only the orthodox Hindu is so careful to abstain from 
injuring the cobra, and their reverential feeling is now perhaps 
rather the exception than the rule.” A fine example of the more 
formidable Cobra (Hamadryas elaps), to be noticed presently, was 
obtained from an earthen pot which had floated out to sea. 
The late Sir J. Emerson Tennent mentions that ‘the Cinghalese 
remark that if one cobra be destroyed near a house, its companion 
is almost certain to be discovered immediately after—a popular belief 
which I had an opportunity of verifying on more than one occasion. 
Once, whén a snake of this description was killed in a bath of the 
Government House at Colombo, its mate was found in the same spot 
the day after; and again, at my own stables, a cobra of five feet long 
having fallen into the well, which was too deep to permit its escape, 
its companion, of the same size, was found the same morning in an 
adjoining drain.* On this occasion the snake, which had been 
several hours in the well, swam with ease, raising its head and hood 
above water ; and instances have repeatedly occurred of the Cobra di 
Capella voluntarily taking considerable excursions by sea” (or by 
rivers, as the writer has personally witnessed). 
Cobras are much dreaded, for they instil the most subtle poison 
into their victims. Their manners are very singular. When at rest 
the neck of the animal is no larger in diameter than the head ; but 
when under the influence of passion and irritation, it raises the 
front part of its body vertically, holding it straight and ngid as an 
iron bar, the neck swelling at the same time. The lower part 
of the body rests upon the ground, and serves as a support to 
the upper part, which is movable and capable of locomotion. This 
faculty of dilating the neck is as striking a trait in the organisation of 
the Cobras as the rattle is in Crofa/us. The ancient inhabitants of 
Egypt adored them ; they attributed to their protection the preserva- 
tion of grain, and allowed them to live in the midst of their cultivated 
* “Pliny,” remarks Sir J. E. Tennent, ‘‘notices the affection that subsists 
between the male and female Asp (or African Cobra) ; and that if one of them 
happens to be killed, the other seeks to avenge its death.” —LIB. viii., c. 37. 
