442 THE BATRACHIANS. 
him. Before going, I examined the man, and satisfied myself he had no 
snake about his person. When we arrived at the spot, he played upon a 
small pipe, and after persevering for some time, out came a large Cobra from 
an ant-hill which I knew it occupied. On seeing the man it tried to escape, 
but he caught it by the tail and kept swinging it round until we reached the 
bungalow. He then made it dance, but before long it bit him above the 
knee. He immediately bandaged the leg above the bite, and applied a 
snake-stone to the wound to extract the poison. He was in great pain 
for a few minutes, but after that it gradually went away, the stone falling off 
just before he was relieved. 
“When he recovered, he held upa cloth, at which the snake flew, and 
caught its fangs in it. While in that position, the man passed his hand up 
its back, and, having seized it by the throat, he extracted the fangs in my 
presence and gave them to me. He then squeezed out the poison on to a 
leaf. It was a clear oily substance, and, whén rubbed on the hand, produced 
a fine lather. I carefully watched the whole operation, which was also 
witnessed by my clerk and two or three other persons.” 
One notable peculiarity in the Cobra is the expansion of the neck, popu- 
larly called the hood. This phenomenon is attributable not only to the skin 
and muscles, but to the skeleton. About twenty pairs of the ribs of the 
neck and fore-part of the back are flat instead of curved, and increase 
gradually from the head to the eleventh or twelfth pair, from which they 
decrease until they are merged into the ordinary curved ribs of the body. 
When ihe snake is excited, it brings these ribs forward so as to spread 
the skin, and then displays the oval hood to the best advantage. In this 
species the back of the hood is ornamented with two large eye-like spots, 
united by a curved black stripe, so formed that the whole mark bears a sin- 
gular resemblance to a pair of spectacles. 
It is rather curious that many persons fancy that the Cobra loses a joint 
of its tail every time that it sheds its poison, this belief being exactly oppo- 
site to the popular notion that the rattlesnake gains a new joint to its rattle 
for every being which it has killed. 
THE BATRACHIANS are separated from the true reptiles on account of 
their peculiar development, which gives them a strong likeness to the fishes, 
and affords a good ground for considering these animals to form a distinct 
order. On their extrusion from the egg they bear no resemblance to their 
parents, but are in a kind of intermediate existence, closely analogous to the 
caterpillar or larval state of insects, and called by the same name. Like the 
fish, they exist wholly in the water, and breathe through gills instead of 
lungs, obtaining the needful oxygen from the water which washes the delicate 
gill-membranes. At this early period they have no external limbs, moving 
by the rapid vibration of the flat and fan-like tail with which they are sup- 
plied. While in this state they are popularly called tadpoles, those of the 
frog sometimes bearing the provincial name of pollywogs. The skin of the 
Batrachians is not scaly, and in most instances is smooth and soft. Further 
peculiarities will be mentioned in connection with the different species. 
These creatures fall naturally into two sub-orders, the Leaping or Tail-less 
Batrachians, and the Crawling Batrachians. The Leaping Batrachians, 
comprising the Frogs and Toads, are familiar in almost all lands, and in 
England are well known on account of their British representatives, 
The most familiar of all the Batrachians, is the COMMON FROG of Europe. 
The general form and appearance of this creature are too well known to 
need much description. It is found plentifully in all parts of England, wan- 
dering to considerable distances from water, and sometimes getting into 
pits, cellars, and similar localities, where it lives for years Without ever seeing 
