FEROCITY OF HAMADRYAD 
and overthrows trees as they stand in its path. But 
this creature has probably grown out of an estivating 
Lediposiren, or even, as some say, an unusually large 
earthworm! There are always, or nearly always, 
anacondas at the Zoo, and those of fair proportions. 
THE KiNG CoBRA OR HAMADRYAD 
Rather lurid in colour and very ferocious in habit 
is this, the largest of all poisonous serpents. It is a 
native of the torrid East, and extends pretty well all the 
way from India to Sumatra. Considering its con- 
spicuous size, it is not a little odd that it should have 
been first made known to science so recently as the year 
1837, when Dr. Cantor described it. But the visitor 
to the Reptile House will soon gather why this long 
and venomous snake should have been overlooked. 
It is really extremely like a cobra, as indeed its ver- 
nacular name or, better, one of its many vernacular 
names, suggests. The same smallish head with clear 
scaling, brownish to blackish hues, elegant and taper- 
ing body, that are seen in the cobra mark the hama- 
dryad. There is even a legend that the earliest repre- 
sentative of this species to reach the Zoological Gardens 
was inadvertently placed in a case with a family of 
cobras, and that being hungry after a long voyage it 
ate up £50 worth before its full identity was thoroughly 
established. Anyhow, the hamadryad bears a great 
superficial likeness to the spectacled cobra, so great a 
likeness, indeed, that some systematists, influenced 
entirely by superficialities, as systematic zoologists 
are unfortunately apt to be, have bracketed it with 
the cobra in the same genus, Nata. More far-seeing 
was Dr. Cantor, who separated it, a conclusion which 
recent investigations into its internal arrange- 
. ments, particularly the structure of the windpipe, 
have fully justified. 1837 was the year which wit- 
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