FEROCITY OF HAMADRYAD 



and overthrows trees as they stand in its path. But 

 this creature has probably grown out of an activating 

 Lediposiren, or even, as some say, an unusually large 

 earthworm ! There are always, or nearly always, 

 anacondas at the Zoo, and those of fair proportions. 



THE KING COBRA OR HAMADRYAD 

 Rather lurid in colour and very ferocious in habit 

 is this, the largest of all poisonous serpents. It is a 

 native of the torrid East, and extends pretty well all the 

 way from India to Sumatra. Considering its con- 

 spicuous size, it is not a little odd that it should have 

 been first made known to science so recently as the year 

 J837, when Dr. Cantor described it. But the visitor 

 to the Reptile House will soon gather why this long 

 and venomous snake should have been overlooked. 

 It is really extremely like a cobra, as indeed its ver- 

 nacular name or, better, one of its many vernacular 

 names, suggests. The same smallish head with clear 

 scaling, brownish to blackish hues, elegant and taper- 

 ing body, that are seen in the cobra mark the hama- 

 dryad. There is even a legend that the earliest repre- 

 sentative of this species to reach the Zoological Gardens 

 was inadvertently placed in a case with a family of 

 cobras, and that being hungry after a long voyage it 

 ate up 50 worth before its full identity was thoroughly 

 established. Anyhow, the hamadryad bears a great 

 superficial likeness to the spectacled cobra, so great a 

 likeness, indeed, that some systematists, influenced 

 entirely by superficialities, as systematic zoologists 

 are unfortunately apt to be, have bracketed it with 

 the cobra in the same genus, Naia. More far-seeing 

 was Dr. Cantor, who separated it, a conclusion which 

 recent investigations into its internal arrange- 

 ments, particularly the structure of the windpipe, 

 have fully justified. 1837 was the year which wit- 



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