As soon as it is fairly out, the man seizes it by the end of the tail, and holds it up in the air at arm's length. In this position it is helpless, having no leverage, and merely wriggles about in fruitless struggles to escape. Having allowed it to exhaust its strength by its efforts, the man lowers it into a basket, where it is only too glad to find a refuge, and closes the lid. After a while, he raises the lid and begins to play the flute.
TEACHING COBRAS TO DANCE.
The Serpent tries to glide out of the basket, but, as soon as it does so, the lid is shut down again, and in a very short time the reptile finds that escape is impossible, and, as long as it hears the sound of the flute, only raises its head in the air, supporting itself on the lower portion of its tail, and continues to wave its head from side to side as long as it hears the sound of the music.
The rapidity with which a cobra learns this lesson is extraordinary, the charmers being as willing to show their mastery over newly-caught Serpents as over those which have been long in their possession.
The colour of the Cobra is in most cases a brownish olive. The most noted peculiarity is the expansion of the neck, popularly called the hood. This phenomenon is attributable not only to the skin and muscles, but to the skeleton. About twenty pairs of the ribs of the neck and fore part of the back are flat instead of curved, and increase gradually from the head to the eleventh or twelfth pair, from which they decrease until they are merged into the ordinary curved ribs of the body. When the snake is excited, it brings these ribs forward so as to spread the skin, and then displays the oval hood to best advantage.
In the Cobra di Capello the back of the hood is ornamented by two large eye-like spots, united by a curved black stripe, so formed that the whole mark bears a singular resemblance to a pair of spectacles.