SNAKES OF CEYLON. 47 1 



The snake was cut in half by the shot and a freshly swallowed 

 quail fell out of the stomach. Ferguson* mentions one that 

 was brought in to him at Trivandrum enormously distended. 

 It measured 4 feet and contained a monitor lizard (Varanus 

 bengalensis) 2 feet long. Phipson mentions lizards being 

 taken by the young in our Society's rooms. Occasionally 

 the cobra exhibits ophiophagous tastes. Mr. Millard tells me 

 that one in our Society's rooms ate another with which it was 

 caged, both snakes having seized the same frog, and com- 

 menced eating from opposite ends. On another occasion one 

 was observed to eat a wolf -snake (Lycodon aulicus), Mr. Frere 

 recently sent me a young example measuring 14J inches, that 

 was eating a Lycodon aulicus measuring 13 J inches. I saw 

 one once, in a well in Trichinopoly, in the act of devouring 

 a cat snake (Dipsadomorphus trigonatus). Colonel G. H. 

 Evans found one in Burma eating a young snake of the 

 genus Simotes. Mr. Kinlock wrote to me of one he encountered 

 at Kil Kotagiri. It measured 5 feet 7 inches, and was 

 engulfing a dhaman (Zaocys mucosus) 6 feet long. Flower 

 again mentions one in Siam swallowing a snake (Macro- 

 pisthodon rhodomelas). Here I may mention that the cobra 

 itself sometimes falls a victim to its larger and more confirmed 

 ophiophagous relative, the King cobra (Naia bungarus). 



Some interesting accounts have appeared of cobras eating 

 the eggs of poultry. Mr. C. P. George recovered the egg of a 

 guinea fowl from a cobra's interior, which he set and, in due 

 course, hatched out ! Miss Hopley in her book on snakes 

 (p. 60) records an exactly parallel incident. In this case, 

 however, the egg was a hen's. It was marked after extraction, 

 and placed under a guinea fowl, and successfully incubated. 

 Mr. Brook Fox records a cobra that had got into a guinea 

 fowl's nest, and had eaten six of the fifteen eggs. It was 

 photographed in this state. The eggs were subsequently 

 removed and set, and three eventually hatched out. After the 

 publishing of these events Colonel Bannerman experimented 

 on cobras in the Parel Laboratory to ascertain how long it 

 took for the egg shell to dissolve under the influence of the 



Vol. X., p. 75. 



