256 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 



it, especially when agitated by fear or anger. Its eyes then 

 seem on fire; it hisses like a serpent, swells out the pouch 

 under its throat, lashes about its long tail, erects the scales on 

 its back, and extending its wide jaws, holds its head, covered 

 over with tubercles, in a menacing attitude. The male, during 

 the spring of the year, exhibits great attachment towards the 

 female. Throwing aside his usual gentleness of character, he 

 defends her even with fury, attacking with undaunted courage 

 every animal that seems inclined to injure her; and at this time, 

 though his bite is by no means poisonous, he fastens so firmly, 

 that it is necessary either to kill him or to beat him with great 

 violence on the nose, in order to make him quit his hold.^ 



Several species of snake incubate their eggs and show 

 parental affection for their young when they are hatched 

 out; but neither in these nor in any other of their 

 emotions do the reptiles appear to rise much above the 

 level of fish. The case, however, which I shall after- 

 wards quote, of the tame snakes kept by Mr. and Mrs. 

 Mann, seems to show a somewhat higher degree of emo- 

 tional development than could be pointed to as occurring 

 in any lower Vertebrata. Moreover, according to Pliny, 

 so much affection subsists between the male and female 

 asp, that when the one is killed the other seeks to avenge 

 its death ; and this statement is so far confirmed — or 

 rather, its origin explained — by Sir Emerson Tennent 

 that he says when a cobra is killed, its mate is often found 

 on the same spot a day or two afterwards. 



Passing on to the general intelligence of reptiles, we 

 shall find that this also, although low as compared with 

 the intelligence of birds and mammals, is conspicuously 

 higher than that of fish or batrachians. 



Taking first the case of special instincts, Mr. W. F. 

 Barrett, in a letter to Mr. Darwin, bearing the date May 6, 

 1873, and contained among the MSS. already alluded to, 

 gives an account of cutting open with a penknife the 

 egg of an alligator just about to hatch. The young 

 animal, although blind, ' instantly laid hold of the finger, 

 and attempted to bite.' Similarly, Dr. Davy, in his ' Ac- 

 count of Ceylon,' gives an interesting observation of his 

 own on a young crocodile, which he cut out of the egg, 

 ^ Passions of Animals,^. 22%. 



