itt4 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXII. 



killed, especially poultry. In Fyzabad one got under a hen coop 

 one night in a native hut, and killed the hen and six chicks. 

 The snake met its death the next night, swallowing a frog bated 

 on a hook. On another occasion one got into a quailery in 

 Fyzabad, and accounted for 13 birds in the night. One only of 

 these had been swallowed, and it seems to me likely that some or 

 all the rest may have died from fright. Only recently in Almora 

 an officer whilst quail shooting flushed a cobra which he shot in 

 attempting to escape down a hole. The snake was cut in half by 

 the shot and a freshly swallowed quail fell out of the stomach. 

 Ferguson* mentions one in this Journal, that was brought in to 

 him at Trivandrum enormously distended. It measured four feet,, 

 and contained a monitor lizard (Varanus bengalensis) two feet 

 long. Phipson mentions lizards being taken by the }*oung in our 

 Society's rooms. Occasionally the cobra exhibits ophiophagous- 

 tastes. Mr. Millard tells me that one in our Society's rooms ate 

 another with which it was caged, both snakes having seized the 

 same frog, and commenced eating from opposite ends. On ano- 

 ther occasion one was observed to eat a wolf-snake (Lycodon 

 mdicus). Mr. Frere recently sent me a young example measuring 

 14^ inches, that was eating a Lycodon aulicus measuring 13^ 

 inches. I saw one once in a well in Trichinopoly in the act of 

 devouring a gamma snake (Bipsadomorphus trigonatus). Colonel 

 G. H. Evans found one in Burma eating a young snake of the 

 genus Simotes. Mr. Kinlock wrote to me of one he encountered 

 at Kil Kotageri. It measured 5 feet 7 inches, and was engulfing 

 a dhaman (Zamenis mncosns) 6 feet long. Flowerf again men- 

 tions one in Siam swallowing a snake (Macropisthodou rhodomelu*.} 

 Here I may mention that the cobra itself sometimes falls a victim 

 to its larger and more confirmed ophiophagous relative the King 

 cobra (Na/ja bunga/rus). 



Some interesting accounts have appeared in this Journal of 

 cobras eating the eggs of poultry. Mr. C. P. George recovered the 

 egg of a guinea fowl from a cobra's interior, which he set, and in 

 due course hatched out. Miss Hopley in her book on snakes (p. 

 60) records an exactly parallel incident. 



In this case however the egg was a hen's. It was marked after 

 extraction and placed under a guinea fowl, and successfully 

 incubated. Mr. Brook Fox records a cobra that had got into a 

 guinea fowl's nest, and had eaten 6 of the 15 eggs. It was 

 photographed in this state. The eggs were subsequently removed, 

 and set and 3 eventually hatched out. After the publishing of 

 these events Colonel Bannerman experimented on cobras in the 

 Parel Laboratory, to ascertain how long it took for the egg shell 



* Vol. X, p. 75. 

 t P. Z. S., 1896, p. 894, Vol. XVI, pp. 174, 363, 369 and 395. 



