THE roiso^^ous snakes of India. 
55 
in captivity for years. Two may be well kept together ; and it 
appears as if they felt some at tachment ‘for each other, for when 
they are excited by having food brought into their cage, or by 
some other incident, they will frequently fight each other, rais- 
ing the anterior part of the body, spreading the hood, and 
i darting as if to bite, but always carefully avoiding to wound. 
I When, however, a third individual or any other snake is brought 
I into the same cage, they attack and kill it. They feed more 
frequently at dusk and during the night than in the daytime ; 
they drink often and much.” 
Floods cause the Cobra to shelter itself in villages, whereby 
its opportunities for mischief are mucli increased. Various 
returns made to the authorities amply attest that it far surpasses 
all other snakes in the number of its victims. 
The Cobra is very prone to variation. Nine of its principal 
varieties are figured in the first six coloured plates prefixed to 
Dr. Fayrer’s recently published work* on the Thanatophidia of 
India. These varieties may be referred to two sub-species dis- 
tinguished by the natives as “ Keautiah ” and “ Grokurrah,” — 
the former with an eye-like spot or simple band at the back of 
the hood, the latter with the well-known ‘‘spectacles,” from 
which this snake is often named. 
Ophiophagus elaps, the other hooded snake of India, some- 
times known as the Hamadryad, is also variable, but not to 
such a degree as the Cobra. It too, as we have said, is widely 
distributed. Fortunately, it i§ not very abundant, for “ it 
grows to the length of twelve or fourteen feet, and is not only 
very powerful, but also active and agressive.” It injects a 
large quantity of venom, which “ is less deadly in equal quan- 
tities than that of the Cobra.” Its home is in hollow trees, 
where it preys on other snakes ; whence its generic name. When 
young it closely resembless another species of tree-snake, the 
harmless Dipsas dendrophila. 
The Hamadryad occasionally takes to the water. Its native 
name in Bengal is “ Sunkerchor,” or shell-breaker ; in Orissa it 
is called “ Ai raj.” 
Compared externally with the Cobra, it not only differs in 
colour, but “ is longer in proportion to its size ; it is, however, 
* The drawings in this work were executed by native students at the 
School of Art in Calcutta, “ most from life itself.” They represent the 
Cobra, the Ophiophagus (two varieties), Bungarus (two species), Callophis 
(one species), the two Indian Viperidse, eight species of Crotalidae, and four- 
teen sea-snakes. Three other plates, not coloured, show the mode of holding 
the snake and the structure of the poison-apparatus. The most valuable 
portion of the work itself is its concluding section, which gives the results 
of Dr. Fayrer’s own experiments, showing the effects of snake-poison on the 
lower animals, and the utter inutility of the native antidotes. 
