352 COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



little cause for apprehension in allowing them to 

 remain in company. For a time all went well, 

 and we had quite ceased to regard the experiment 

 as a hazardous one, when one morning the keeper, 

 on going to clean the cage, found it tenanted by 

 only one snake in a very crowded and torpid 

 condition. The most remarkable point in this 

 case was not the approximately like bulk of the 

 two snakes, but the fact that they were both 

 venomous ones of the same species. Even when 

 the victim is a harmless snake, and therefore sus- 

 ceptible to the toxic action of venom, a hamadryad 

 often has much difficulty in getting it down in 

 spite of the considerable reduction in muscular 

 resistance that must attend the repeated and ener- 

 getic injections of poison that follow capture. But 

 venomous snakes are practically exempt from the 

 action of the venom of their own species, so that 

 the struggle in this case must have been carried 

 on by unaided muscular effort, and must therefore 

 have been correspondingly severe and prolonged. 

 Even where the victim is a harmless snake weakened 

 by intoxication, a long time often elapses ere the 

 process of swallowing is fully carried out, and to the 

 very last, the protruding end of the prey continues 

 to writhe energetically as it is slowly and surely 

 drawn further and further inwards. 



The common krait, Bungarus cceruleus, is not 

 at all likely to be met with in gardens in Calcutta, 



