Snakes* Delhi 293 



is able to thrust its fangs in up to the roots, it will 

 fasten upon the bite and will not easily let go its hold ; 

 it must be shaken or jerked off. Again, punctures 

 will be found as though made by a needle, and 

 probably the wound will bleed slightly. 



A snake, it must be remembered, has nothing else 

 to trust to except his teeth they must be paws, 

 claws, nails, and talons, and unless he wants his food 

 to escape, they must never loose their hold for a 

 moment. Cobras, which belong to the first class of 

 snakes, kill their prey by poison. The second class 

 comprises snakes which kill their prey by means of 

 constriction or smothering it in their coils. The third 

 class kill by swallowing their prey, or suffocation. 

 Supposing that a snake were to open its mouth for a 

 moment for the purpose of what we call biting, its 

 prey would escape ; but its teeth do not inflict wounds, 

 they merely hold and move the food, and its jaws work 

 almost like hands in guiding the food. Long, conical, 

 curved, claw-like instruments, the arrangement of the 

 teeth is like that of a mousetrap, easy enough to 

 enter, but impossible to escape from. 



A man whom I knew well in India, who was an 

 old Qjui Hai, told me that a cobra once got through a 

 chink in his hen-house, and ate so many eggs from 

 under a sitting hen that it was much too large to 

 escape through the same exit, and it remained half in 

 and half out, where it was discovered the next morning 

 in a surfeited condition. On killing it and opening its 

 body, the eggs were all found unbroken and warm. 



