INDIAN SERPENTS. 
No. I. 
COLUBER. 
Abdominal Scuta 185 
Sub-caudal Squama 59 
Coluber Naja , Linn. Syst. Nat. p. 3 82 . 
The hooded snake, or Cobra de Capello, of the East Indies, generally reputed the most 
dangerous of the serpent tribe in that country, has of late been so amply treated of, in 
the Account of Coromandel Serpents, that referring to that work for a description of the 
Cobra, as also for the result of various experiments on its poison, it may be sufficient 
at present to offer some remarks of another kind, omitted before, on account chiefly of 
the want of an explanatory drawing, which my painter in India, (a native,) attempted 
unsuccessfully to execute. 
The figure now presented is a sketch from life, by an English artist in Bengal, and 
exhibits the Cobra preparing for combat: his head and neck erected in a curve, 
resembling a swan’s neck, are firmly supported by the convolutions of part of the trunk 
and the tail, while the hood is partially, not fully, expanded. 
The gentleman to whom I am obliged for the drawing,* favoured me at the same 
time with the following remark. 
“ When the Cobra de Capello has raised himself for combat, he makes a full inspi- 
ration, by which the whole body being inflated, the scales are separated from each 
other,- and the interstitial skin becomes visible from the head to the tail, but less and 
less in approaching the vent. On the succeding expiration, the body collapsing, the 
interstitial skin is no more visible, except on the hood and upper part of the trunk. 
In this manner, as the animal breathes, the body alternately swells and shrinks, but 
the hood and the neck remain expanded.” 
It may be further remarked, when the hood is expanded, the neck bent, and the nose 
pointing directly foreward, that no part of the head is visible to a spectator placed 
exactly behind : yet the head is not properly hooded, or concealed by the hood, and 
the scales in front, are not so much separated as on the back of the hood, which is 
somewhat convex. 
* Mr. Alexander Russell of Bengal, a former contributor to the Coromandel Collection, and to whom acknowledg- 
ment is due for all the specimens contained in the present Fasciculus. 
PART II. 
