Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/87

Rh to that from which he had just recovered. There he lay again, to all appearance dead, with every muscle rigid and his jaws fixed In a partial gape as if sudden dissolution had prevented their closing. Seeing in this an opportunity of giving the boy a lesson against the danger of meddling with seemingly dead cobras, I called him down to my side. "Do you think that snake is dead?" said I.

"Yes," he replied, "I believe he is surely dead now; you must have given him his death wound getting him out of the hole."

"Well, my boy, I'll show you whether he is dead or not; and from what you will see, take warning that a bite from an apparently dead cobra like this is a thousand times worse than if he were to strike you perchance in the usual way as you pass through the bush."

So saying, I put the end of the stick into the stiff, gaping jaws. Instantly they closed on it like a vise until the fangs were buried in the wood. Then, lifting him up till his tail swung clear of the ground, I bade the boy count the time by his watch, to see how long he would retain his bulldog-like grip. The body was gathered into unbending curves; but, as the minutes went by, these straightened out, commencing at the tail and advancing gradually upward to within three inches of the head. At last this too became limber, the jaws unloosened, and he dropped to the ground as the boy exclaimed: "Well, I'll be blamed! that bulldog snake held on for eight minutes and a half." As he lay now exhausted on the ground he put out his tongue at intervals, but never otherwise moved until I attempted to put the stick across his neck preparatory to taking him, when he stood up for fight as fresh as ever. However, I was nimble with the stick, and by its aid got my fingers round his throat just as he went into his third fit, and held his deadly jaws open again ready to close upon anything they should chance upon. Thus open-mouthed he remained as I carried him homeward, but recovered from his fit as he was placed in his cage.

The fears of the boy had quadrupled the animal's size, but still for a cobra he was large, being considerably over four feet in length. Having him now at home to practice on, I soon learned how to throw him into this state of temporary lockjaw, and instantly restore him again at pleasure. And besides this, I became certain that the ordinary wounds made by a cobra are nothing compared with his terrible bite when in this strange condition.

Among my collection I had at first six cobras. They used to eat frogs and toads, pursuing them around the room as a dog would a rat, seizing them by whatever part they could catch hold of, and swallowing them down whole and alive. After a time the family increased, for one Saturday night an old lady cobra