Cuar. IX.] SNAKES. 299 
and he informed me that on enlarging a hole near 
the foot of the tree under which the accident. occur- 
red, he unearthed a cobra of upwards of three feet 
long, and so purely white as to induce him to be- 
lieve that: it was an albino. With the exception of the 
rat-snake}, the cobra de capello is the only serpent 
which seems from choice to frequent the vicinity of 
human dwellings, doubtless attracted by the young of 
the domestic fowl and by the moisture of the wells and 
drainage. 
The young cobras, it is said, in the Sarpa-dosd, are 
not venomous till after the thirteenth day, when they 
shed their coat for the first time. 
The Singhalese remark that if one cobra be destroyed 
near a house, its companion is almost certain to be dis- 
covered immediately after.—a popular belief which I 
had an opportunity of verifymg on more than one 
occasion. 
1 Coryphodon  Blumenbachit. 
There is a belief in Ceylon that 
the bite of the rat-snake, though 
harmless to man, is fatal to black 
cattle. The Singhalese add that 
it would be equally so to man were 
the wound to be touched by cow- 
dung. Woxr, in the interesting 
story of his Life and Adventures in 
Ceylon, mentions that rat-snakes 
were often so domesticated by the 
natives as to feed at their batle. 
He says: “I once saw an example 
of this in the house of a native. 
It being meal time, he called his 
snake, which immediately came 
forth from the roof under which 
he and I were sitting. He gave 
it victuals from his own dish, which 
the snake took of itself from off a 
fig-leaf that was laid for it, and 
ate along with its host. When it 
Once, when a snake of this description was 
had eaten its fill, he gave it a kiss, 
and bade it go to its hole.” 
Major Sxmwer, writing to me 
12th Dec., 1858, mentions the still 
more remarkable case of the domes- 
tication of the cobra de capello in 
Ceylon. “Did you ever hear,” he 
says, “of tame cobras being kept 
and domesticated about a house, 
going in and out at pleasure, and 
in common with the rest of the 
inmates? In one family, near 
Negombo, cobras are kept as pro- 
tectors, in the place of dogs, by a 
wealthy man who has always large 
sums of money in his house. But 
this is not a solitary case of the 
kind. I heard of it only the other 
day, but from undoubtedly good au- 
thority. The snakes glide about the 
house, a terror to thieves, but-never 
attempting to harm the inmates.” 
