100 A NATURALIST IN BORNEO 



turbs it, is a pure myth. All who have observed these 

 deadly snakes in their natural conditions agree unani- 

 mously in stating that the Cobra and Hamadryad are 

 only anxious to get away from those who disturb 

 them, and they have no desire to waste their precious 

 supply of poison on an animal too large for them to 

 devour subsequently. Professor Minchin when in India 

 came suddenly on a Cobra in the road ; the Cobra 

 reared up and displayed its hood in the best approved 

 manner, but while Professor Minchin was watching it 

 he perceived that the tail of the Cobra was moving 

 about the surface of the ground, and eventually slipped 

 into a large fissure for which the snake had evidently 

 been feeling, and, in less time than it takes to write 

 it, the Cobra had slid down into the fissure and was 

 gone. The late Colonel Bingham encountered in a 

 Burmese jungle a pair of large Hamadryads, male and 

 female ; he was cornered between them, for one was 

 on his right, the other on his left ; but they made no 

 attempt to attack him, and when they realized that he 

 had no intention of attacking them, they lowered their 

 erected crests and silently glided away. Many other 

 observations of a similar nature could be quoted, but 

 these suffice to show that we can safely regard a 

 poisonous snake as a somewhat timid creature, admir- 

 ably equipped with a complicated poison mechanism 

 for the capture and destruction of its prey, but resort- 

 ing to the use of this for purposes of defence only in 

 the last extremity, though advertising the possession of 

 it by signals which to the knowing eye read as plainly 

 as the printed words Nemo me impune lacessit. 



The question of mimicry amongst animals is one 

 that will be discussed at greater length in a later 



