52 SNAKES OF CEYLON. 



timidity, rarely rousing itself seriously to escape, and even 

 when attacked making no attempt to avenge offence or injury. 

 It thus becomes an easy victim to those who seek to kill it. 

 or an easy capture to those of a more courageous and venture- 

 some spirit. Even the female that shows such unremitting 

 devotion to her parental duty of incubation will suffer 

 herself to be captured with her brood of eggs with little or no 

 remonstrance. In Travancore hi 1903 a 15 -foot dam, with 

 eggs as it proved on the verge of hatching, allowed herself to 

 be boxed, and conveyed to Trivandrum without offering any 

 resistance. Similarly, in Balrampur, Mr. Oakes told me that 

 two large pythons, one a dam incubating eggs, were easily 

 captured alive and brought in from the jungle, the female 

 continuing her duties and successfully hatching out her eggs. 

 Six- to eight-foot pythons have several times been brought in 

 to me found basking on a log, or in a boat on the river. These 

 seemingly allowed themselves to be captured by a couple of 

 coolies with little or no attempt at escape, though nothing 

 could have been easier than one wriggle and a plunge into t*he 

 water. Father Dreckman met with one just under 20 pounds 

 in weight when walking with a friend in jungle. It was seen 

 leisurely crossing their path. His friend went for its tail, 

 while Father Dreckman negotiated the head, expecting a hard 

 struggle, but except for an ineffectual snap at his face, the 

 snake allowed its neck to be seized, and its head to be thrust 

 into a bag, into which the rest of its body was unceremoniously 

 huddled without remonstrance. 



Its size, beauty, and placid disposition make it a welcome 

 addition to the snake charmer's stock-in-trade, so that 

 scarcely a member of the fraternity is without one. It is 

 therefore in India a very familiar creature to everyone. 

 The juggler produces his specimen with some ostentation 

 from a bag or basket, seeking to impress the onlookers, and he 

 trades upon the spectators' natural fears, for if one comes 

 forward too close to inspect the creature, it is more than 

 likely that the owner affects the greatest alarm for his safety, 

 as though to foster the belief already prevalent in the assembled 

 throng, that it is to him, and him only, that the snake is a 

 peacefully inclined and harmless creature. 



