POISONOUS SNAKES in 



built and unmortared wall is therefore certain to hold a 

 number of them. They are the greatest pests to the 

 poultry yard that it is possible to imagine, and, chiefly 

 on their account, fowls must at night be enclosed in 

 pens entirely covered with fine-meshed wire netting. 

 Even when this precaution has been taken, they have a 

 marvellous knack of discovering the least flaw or hole, 

 and of squeezing themselves through. Having got 

 inside, they proceed to slaughter the fowls wholesale, 

 apparently for the sole purpose of finding out if they 

 are sitting on young chickens in the fluffy stage, for they 

 are not big enough to eat large poultry, and they do not 

 touch eggs. I have found as many as fourteen fowls 

 dead in the morning, besides all the young chickens that 

 happened to be with them. Often, luckily, the marauder 

 is so bulged out with his meal, that the crevice whereby 

 he entered will not admit of his depature, and so he 

 suffers for his crime. These cobras are also rather prone 

 to enter dwelling-houses, perhaps in pursuit of rats and 

 mice ; they can get in by ventilators and apertures at 

 some distance from the ground. Thatched roofs are their 

 favourite haunts, and, since the appearance of a poisonous 

 snake falling on to the table or the bed is an unpleasant 

 one, it is always well, when possible, to have cottages in 

 snake-infested countries roofed with iron, or, failing this, 

 to interpose a ceiling of boards or canvas between the 

 room and the roof. 



In addition to inflicting a dangerous bite, the black- 

 necked cobra has also a very unpleasant habit of ejecting 

 venom from its fangs into the eyes of its enemies at a 

 distance of several feet. I had an unpleasant personal 

 experience of this once. I was in a dark outhouse one 

 rainy morning, when I suddenly felt a spatter of moisture 

 first in one eye and then in the other, repeated instantly 



