20 6 ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES. 



flinging her into the middle of a pond where she could 

 easily have escaped if her subjection had been an invol- 

 untary servitude. His favorite trick was to get a lot of 

 the common black tree-snakes {Coluber dry as) and by a 

 mere word make them engage each other in mortal com- 

 bat, — snakes which but a minute before had lain coiled 

 together in a sluggish repose from which no other human 

 voice could rouse them even for a moment. By a slightly 

 different sound he would inspire them with a panic that 

 sent them darting out of the room, and out of the house 

 if the doors were open ; nor did he trouble himself on 

 such occasions to recapture them, for, after a few hours' 

 manipulation, a batch of fresh-caught snakes would serve 

 his purpose as well. 



The professional jugglers prefer the cobra only as the 

 least expensive of all sensational animals, for crocodiles 

 and pythons are equally tamable. The wardens of the 

 sacred crocodile-ponds near Benares keep their pets under 

 perfect control, and, as Captain Godwin Buchanan assures 

 us, through influences among which hunger is only a 

 minor item. His opinion seems confirmed by the state- 

 ments of a famous Spanish beast-tamer, proprietor of a 

 cockpit and pulque-shop in Tampico, Mexico. The 

 effluent canal of the Tampico Laguna is well stocked 

 with alligators, whose services to the health-police have 

 made them a sort of public proteges. They live upon 

 the offal of the slaughter-houses, and are so well fed that 

 they can afford to spare their two-legged fellow-citizens : 



