domesticated about a house, going in and out at
pleasure, and in common with the rest of the inmates? In one family,
near Negombo, cobras are kept as protectors, in the place of dogs, by a
wealthy man who has always large sums of money in his house. But this is
not a solitary case of the kind. I heard of it only the other day, but
from undoubtedly good authority. The snakes glide about the house, a
terror to thieves, but never attempting to harm the inmates."]

[Footnote 3: PLINY notices the affection that subsists between the male
and female asp; and that if one of them happens to be killed, the other
seeks to avenge its death.--Lib. viii. c. 37.]

[Footnote 4: STEWART'S _Account of the Pearl Fisheries of Ceylon_, p. 9:
Colombo, 1843.

The Python reticulatus (the "rock-snake") has been known like the cobra
de capello, to make short voyages at sea. One was taken on board H.M.S.
"Hastings," when off the coast of Burmah, in 1853; it is now in the
possession of the surgeon, Dr. Scott.]

[Footnote 5: SWAINSON, in his _Habits and Instincts of Animals_, c. iv.
p. 187, says that instances are well attested of the common English
snake having been met with in the open channel; between the coast of
Wales and the island of Anglesea, as if they had taken their departure
from the one and were bound for the other.]

In BENNETT'S account of "_Ceylon and its Capabilities_" there is a
curious piece of Singhalese folk-lore, to the effect, that the cobra de
capello every time it expends its poison _loses a joint of its tail_,
and eventually acquires a head which resembles that of a toad. A recent
discovery of Dr. Kelaart has thrown light on the origin of this popular
fallacy. The family of "false snakes" (_pseudo-typhlops_), as Schlegel
names the group, have till lately consisted of but three species, one
only of which was known to inhabit Ceylon. They belong to a family
intermediate between the lizards and serpents with the body of the
latter, and the head of the former, with which they are moreover
identified by having the upper jaw fixed to the skull as in mammals and
birds, instead of movable as amongst the true ophidians. In this they
resemble the amphisbaenidae; but the tribe of _Uropeltidae_, or "rough
tails," has the further peculiarity, that the tail is truncated, instead
of ending, like that of the typhlops, in a point more or less acute; and
the reptile assists its own movements by pressing the flat end to the
ground. Wit