The Minneapolis journal., 1901-06-24

foes are facing each other. and this time
Rik-i-Tik means business
Just as the Hooded Death" launches his
stroke downward-almost before he has com
menced it-Rik-i-Tik, quick as the parry Of
master fencer, springs to meet it, and their
jaws interlock. Over and over they roll, the
cobra winding himself strenuously round his
relentless little captor. Now they are both
seemingly exhausted and lie almost motion
less, but Rik-i-Tik' never relaxes his grip for
an instant After perhaps sixty or one hun
dred seconds of this death-grip the mongoose
springs away. Again the cobra rears him
self up to renew the contest, but not so
loftily as before does he spread his diminished
hood. He has been sorely wounded, but not
to death. Rik-i-Tik stands. dusty and blood
stained, regarding his humbled adversary At
but a closer examination shows that the
| blood is that of his adversary.
Even the taste of blood, however has not
made the mongoose any more anxious for the
! fray, and he Is still just as keen as ever to
| flesh his vindictive reeth on the nearest by
| stander as the snake, his deadly enemy
| At last he comes again to the scratch. This
| time he entirely anticipates the cobra S stroke
as, 1eaping upward, he secures his never-fail-
! ing grip on the snakes upper jaw. The
coba is now weakening, and Rik-i-Tik
shakes his head savagely to and fro with all
| the strength Of his little body-for all the
world like a terrier shaking a rat. After
three or four of these deadly grips the cobra
can no longer raise his mangled head to ngnt'
| but crawls painfully and slowly away 10
| shortly die stiffen be cast out and buried
| So much for the battle Now, there are
many questions which present themselves 1or
! solution Is the mongoose always the VIC
| tor? Not always but usually. l have seen
| five cobras killed and only one mongooSe.
| Even he had previously killed one cobra, ana
| was probably not quite so fresh and quick
| as he would otherwise have been. he was
| struck on either side of the upper hd, nav
| ing evidently once missed his grip, ana aIter
| half an hour he lay stretched out beside MS
| victim.
| It is also unfair to pit a small mongoose
against a large cobra. The height to which
| the mongoose has to spring must detract
| largely from that exactitude Of grip which is
| SO vitality necessary
! 1 have never seen the mongoose fix his grip
| anywhere except on the cobras Jaws ana
| then almost invariably on the upper Jaw.
| For this reason he will only deliver a frontal
attack-never an attack from the rear. 1t
| is wonderful that in taking this grip, he
should escape puncture by the cobra's fangs,
| lying as they do, along the upper jaw. l
! believe myself, that the grip is always placed
| behind the point Of the fangs, SO as to render
| puncture from them impossible while at
| the same time the teeth OF the mongoose
! either strike off the fangs at their roots or
| else enter the poison-sacs and 80 let their
contents escape. In either way the eftec-
tiveness of the cobra's weapons is destroyed.
These are not altogether theories, but are
| founded upon dissections made of the cobra g
| head after the fight. OF course, large num-
! Der of such dissections would require to be
made to prove that such were invariably the
facts which accounted for the escape of the
mongoose.
| Next comes the interesting question: Has
| the mongoose any immunity? 1t is true,
curiously enough, that he does possess GER
tain amount of immunity, relative to some
| other animals, such rabbits, dogs, hens
| est protection to him If he is bitten. The
| cobra is the animal which possesses the lar
| gest amount of immunity from the effects OF
! its own poison, and yet it is an interesting
fact that cobra may be killed by injecting
| 1t with poison taken from it's own glands.
/ About half a gram Of poison or more may
be obtained from fairly grown cobra; while
hundredth part Of a gram Is more than
| sufficient to kill a mongoose, or, indeed, any
| but large animals. Nature is munifcent
| everywhere. Thus a very high immunity
indeed would be necessary to protect any but
| the largest animals from a cobra bite that
had reached fairly home. Rik-i-Tik, the
| mongoose-the born enemy of snakes-is pro-
| tected solely by his quick eye and his own
activity; if these fail him he is lost indeed.