SNAKES 351 



the Sundarbans and lying to at many points of 

 the banks during the course of their voyages. 

 Numerous splendid specimens, usually obtained 

 from Assam, used to be constantly exhibited in 

 the Zoological Garden at Alipur. They are truly 

 magnificent creatures in their wonderful and 

 sinister beauty and grace of form and movement. 

 They have a repute for great savageness and a 

 tendency to be actively aggressive, but this has 

 probably arisen rather as the result of the alarm 

 attending the sight of such colossal cobras than of 

 their endowment with special ferocity. None of 

 those at Alipur ever showed any signs of ex- 

 ceptionally bad temper, and one very fine specimen 

 was certainly the tamest and most intelligent snake 

 that I ever met with. It is, of course, well known 

 that they normally feed on other kinds of snakes, 

 but it was only as the result of experience that we 

 found out that they are cannibals. The specimens 

 at Alipur were usually kept in solitary confinement, 

 but once, in default of full accommodation for a 

 freshly acquired stock, two of them were placed in 

 the same enclosure. When I first saw that this 

 had been done it did seem to me that they must 

 be exposed to some temptation, but the superin- 

 tendent of the garden scouted the idea of there 

 being any risk of a catastrophe ; and quite apart from 

 their specific identity, the two animals seemed to be 

 so much alike in size that there appeared to be 



