[14] "Pliny," remarks Sir J. E. Tennent, "notices the affection that subsists between the male and female Asp (or African Cobra); and that if one of them happens to be killed, the other seeks to avenge its death"—lib. viii. c. 37.
[15] This name being also applied to the harmless Tortrix scytale
[16] We have seen a Cobra thus spurt its venom against the plate-glass cover of the box in which it was kept.—Ed.
[17] Dekay, in his "Natural History of New York," remarks that it is a popular belief that Hogs are particularly destructive to Rattlesnakes; but neither their bristly hide nor their thick teguments afford them perfect immunity from the stroke of this reptile. I was informed by a respectable farmer that he lost three Hogs in one season by the poison either of the Copperhead or Rattlesnake.—Ed.
[18] In Chapman's "Travels in the Interior of South Africa" (vol. ii. p. 59), we read—"May 19th. I lost my best Dog, Cæsar. He had seized a large Puff-adder by the tail, and shook it. When the Snake was released it darted at the Dog's face, and having fixed its fangs in its cheek, stuck there like a Bull-dog until it was killed. The Dog only survived ten minutes."—Ed.
[19] A few cases have been known.—Ed.
[20] Moodie's "Ten Years in South Africa," vol. i. p. 318.
[21] Subsequent experiments with the virus of the Indian Cobra have conclusively proved that ammonia is not a sufficient antidote, as alleged in [p. 95].—Ed.
[22] "Proceedings of the Zoological Society" for 1850, p. 106.
[23] "A Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica," by P. H. Gosse.