SNAKES OF CEYLON. 463 



seen jugglers and professional snakemen with their captive 

 specimens. If a specimen has been on show for long, it will 

 often require a good slap on its back to provoke it to erect 

 itself and hiss, llie cobra that ■will do so without such 

 treatment, one may depend upon it has been but recently 

 deprived of its liberty. 



Young cobras are much more dangerous than adults, as a 

 rule. They seem more on the alert, more easily excited, and 

 strike repeatedly and wth much malice. Wall (A. J.) speaks 

 in similar terms when he says : " When the young cobra is 

 hatched, it is very small, very irritable, and exceedingly 

 dangerous. A full-grown cobra, can be handled •with perfect 

 safety, but a young one, ten or eleven inches long, is so active, 

 and its body is so small, that it can be scarcely touched with 

 impunity." It is certainly significant that one never sees a 

 young cobra in the hands of jugglers. 



(c) Striking Posture : The most notable habit in the cobra 

 is the very remarkable pose it adopts when alarmed, and which 

 has gained for it world-wide renown. Not only does it erect 

 the forebody to a remarkable degree, but it flattens its neck 

 in a very remarkable and characteristic way to form the so- 

 called " hood." The height to which a cobra can erect itself 

 is usually very much over-estimated by the casual observer. 

 I have taken careful measurements on several occasions, 

 marking off the height on a stick, when the snake's attention 

 was engaged by a juggler. The measurement of the whole 

 snake in life is not easy, and the lengths given must not be 

 taken as very exact. I found the degree of erection commen- 

 surate with the degree of excitement or provocation. One 

 snake measuring 5 feet 2^ inches poised vertically to a height 

 of 13 inches, another 6 feet 4 inches long sat up 15^ inches, a 

 third 6 feet and ^ an inch raised itself 14 inches, and a fourth 

 5 feet 1 inch, only 7^ inches. On August 20, 1904, in Bangalore 

 I found a 5-footer just sat up 15 inches, but on the next day 

 in the presence of a mongoose that was causing him much 

 agitation the same snake erected itself 21 inches. Another 

 cobra li inches less in length raised itself just 21 inches under 

 similar provocation. It may be taken then that the maximum 

 limit of erection is about one-third the length of the snake. 



