Sceva.] 90 [January 18, 



spot which the fang had penetrated, but the fold of skin into which 

 the fangs had injected the poison was removed within a second after 

 the bite, for the knife had entered almost before the fangs had left . 

 In fact it could not have been done more rapidly, and yet within one 

 hour the animal was dead from the effects of the poison. The 

 infinitesimal portion of time during which the cobra's fangs were 

 inserted into the tissues was sufficient to have sent the poison through 

 the circulation beyond the reach of incision ; and yet how very small 

 must that quantity have been." 



Mr. Sceva exhibited on the president's table a living specimen of 

 the cobra which he had brought with him from India. It was 

 about five feet in length and of the variety known in India as the 

 '' Keuteah." It had eaten nothing while it had been in his pos- 

 session, since the 8th of June last, a period of seven months and 

 ten days . 



He had also kept others in India for over five months without food. 



He said that the common belief that the cobra would seek to exer- 

 cise its deadly power by biting any person who should come within 

 its reach was quite erroneous; on the contrary it avoided using its 

 fangs as much as possible except when securing its food. When two 

 cobras were placed together in a cage, they would sometimes strike at 

 each other for hours with their noses, and would blow their venom and 

 saliva from their mouths, but he had never seen one bite another, al- 

 though he had kept a large number of them in cages convenient for 

 observation. 



Of the great number of deaths (some thousands) occurring annu- 

 ally in India from cobras, the bites were almost always received when 

 people stepped upon them. 



Until very recently it was almost universally supposed that the 

 poison of the cobra had no effect on the mongoose, an animal re- 

 sembling the weasel. It was well known that the mongoose would 

 attack and kill the cobra and would sometimes eat a large part of the 

 body; but in these encounters the mongoose by his great agility could 

 easily avoid being bitten, and Mr. S. had found on examining a 

 cobra after being killed by a mongoose that all the wounds had been 

 inflicted back of the head. When, however, the mongoose was se- 

 cured and a cobra was compelled to bite its leg by having it put into 

 the snake's mouth, the mongoose died in a very short time. 



