258 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXII. 



people are not aware that there are two ways in which the essential 

 auditory apparatus may be stimulated, and sounds heard. If one 

 strikes a tuning fork, and places the stem on any part of the skull, 

 or even the spine to its lowest part, the vibrations can be heard 

 distinctly. If the head is in contact with a table, and the tuning 

 fork struck, the sound is audible when the stem is placed on the 

 table at some distance though inaudible when not touching the 

 table. This is due to the conduction of vibrations through solids 

 and such vibrations are better heard, and for a longer time than 

 those conducted by waves of air which strike upon a membrane 

 " the drum," situated at varying depths (according to the parti- 

 cular animal) in a canal in the skull (the external auditory meatus). 

 The drum set vibrating acts through a chain of tiny bones in the 

 middle ear, so as to affect fluid contained in semicircular canals in 

 the internal ear, the fluid in its turn communicating the vibrations 

 to highly specialised sense organs at the termination of the 

 filaments of the auditory nerves. These nerves carry the impulses 

 received to the brain centres where they are interpreted as sounds. 

 This latter method of conduction, viz., by means of the air is the 

 predominating one in mammals, birds, and manjr reptiles, but is 

 entirely wanting in all snakes, there being no external orifice, and 

 no drum to receive impressions. Conduction by solids is however 

 good in snakes, perhaps for all we know more highly sensitive 

 than in man. 



Now it is obvious that if snakes have no ear openings and no 

 drums they cannot hear sounds conducted by air, such as those 

 emitted by musical and other instruments. This accounts for the 

 cobras taking no notice of the noises I made at close quarters, 

 though they were keenly alive to sounds such as footsteps commu- 

 nicated through the ground. If one is to believe the wonderful 

 stories, told in good faith I have no doubt, about " charming,'' one 

 must explain it by assuming that snake charmers are possessed of 

 some occult force not apparent to the spectators, for it cannot be 

 explained through the agency of sound conducted by air. As a 

 matter of fact a snake charmer in Bangalore with whom I had 

 become very familiar admitted to me that snake-men knew that 

 snakes were deaf, and that the whole of their " charming " was a 

 hoax. It is most certainly the incessant movement of the man's 

 arms while piping, or the restless movements of his knees while 

 squatting that affords the necessary stimulus, and keeps the 

 cobra excited, and erect. 



It is very curious how all absorbing movement is to the cobra. 

 Mr. Phipson says " you have only to attract its attention with one 

 hand, while you seize it in the middle of the body with the other 

 and the snake is yours. It strikes in every direction especially at 

 any moving object, but it never seems to occur to it to turn, and bite 



