The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-11-16

rest of the body eoilsd in the form of spiral. Th,s spiral form gives h m suf- ! t1cient anchorage to rear his body by sheer muscula. effort, ard IlSo the re- ! cesEary leverage in deaing the blow. His eyes glsten like obelisks, his forked tongue darts in and out With low hsslng sound Suddenly he throws back his head in low curve, and as swi tly darts forward to his victim, part as a p,unse and partly as spr nr, unfol ling portion of his coil to
 in rease his range. It looks as if the cobra sprang into the air, but as mat ter of fact, his bely usually touches the ground at the moment of striking, in cr1er to afr rd him sufficient leverage to imbad his fangs firmly in the body of the victim.
 ] he action ie n agni icent, and yet swift as lightning flash. The tongue is wi h1laWn the mouth wide cp2n The fsngs fa Ill on ;he victim 'aJ stab the lower jaw closing in len ath as q bite. If the blow has been fair and square two small punctur3s are made in tho flesh of the victim by tn two fangs; otherwise, if the blow has b en l one-aided tEere will be only enc pune tule
 Now, the mare striking os the tl7w is not enough, and if tthe cobra were in s antare7ps y to withdraw the fanps after dealing the blow, his grey would suffer no worse effect than the pain Of those needle-lilse punctures. It is still nee ssary to inject the po'so1. In cer- ia Il cases indeed, by $ roag muscu- lar action, the poison has been injec ed almost s mu tareously with the blow; nay, in case where the cobra was in erdi ately rorsed to fury, the pose II was S o. out by st~ocg muscular ef- fort W hile the cobra was st l. in the act of Ilunging-and in this case the WCu'd-be victim, Wh2 was really out of range, escaped the blow, but had the r is on squirtel all Q er him. St Il, however, in most cases the poison is in jectsd after the blow--though it be but alf second after, That half a cond has saved many a life-for instance, where the blow not being struck full in the body, but only on the edge of it, the c bFa slipped off the body by the mere impetus of the blow causing the fangs
 10 seratch along the skin in two thin !. lines.
 Assuming, however, that the blow . has Teen struck full on the body of tn vict m, the cobra immediately after the
 blow G. e., as soon as he has par rtially reco ed from his own impetus, which is in about a secend or so) wrggles his
 head either to the right or to the left
 This act of turling helps to squeeze
 the poison elsn1 s.tuated on that side
 to which tie cobra has turned and thus to inject the poison over the pune
 ture on that side. tOi course, If the
 cob has time to turn both ways, tfen
 tha poison is deposited or both woun E and the condition of the victim is . douhly despera e) After this dis charge the ootra usually drops off the , lin in an inert mass as if considerably though tenn oTarily, weakened by the ,, loss of the precicus fluid. There may
 of course, be sufficient secretion stil
 left in the bag to give second bite i'm
 mediatsly after, but in that case the
 wourd may not necessarily be tatal. Il
 usua ly takes few hours, sometimes days, to accumulate the full supply
 aeain There was, however, one case within the writer's know e ge where , three small child en were successiVely bitten by largs cobra. and all thre:
 died in consequence.
 But to resume. It will, therefore be
 q parent that CD the fangs are em
 ploysd mercy to cause the wound oi ) wounds-i. e., to open up a cammunic2. : ticn with the blood of the victim; an( (2) the poison deposited on the wound mixes with the blood and eventually caus;s death as will be mentioned later
 on. Hence it will be noted that if tht poison is not able to enter the wount there is no danger. In other words, i the cobra bites person, not on tht naked stin but thro" gh a fairly sub r antial garment, the fangs will g through right enough, but the poisor
 will be deposited on the garment ant not on the wound Tn such a case, i ' the person bt'en were to remove tht
 garment. at least from the immed at 1, neighborhood of the wound, before thu
 poison has had time to soak through it
 he is in no danger whatever
 On the other hand, if there is alread, a wound or sore on the body. then ever a bow from a fangless cobra will be ia tal Snake-charmers are well aware o l this fact and are particularly carefu on such occasions as the following: / 9 band of these men were exhibiting be
 fore the writer, when, after a few odt 9 feats, trey proceeded to show graphi l eally how a cobra strikes it's prey . They produced magnificent specimen ? fully five feet in length and as thick a s ones wrist-thcugh of course, fangl ass = One of the men struck up monotonoUt
 tune on wind instrument, sometime I, like a Highland bagpipe. The cobr immediately reared it's head fully tw' z feet from the ground, and bgan sway
 ing it's body gracefully in time witt
 tfe music in evident pleasure The y one of the other men took off his tvni
 and stood naked to the waiss. Hi
 bared back was carefully examined t see that there was not so much as . scratch on it. He knelt down abou $ two feet in front of the cobra an t waited.
 Suddenly, at a given signal, the mu = sic stopped. In fier7e anger the cobv
 lau"ched forth at the kneeling figure a
 being the neerest-but, almost s'mu' ta
 neously with the stoppage of the music
 the nan dropped his head on his kne s and receire1 the blow on his baIe
 back. The cobra paused just one sec 5 ond after striking. and then turned O t it's head and fell off. There was r huge drop of poison on the back of tn