By no means. The cobra goes around with a chip on his shoulder. In India they kill from 17,000 to 18,000 people annually! And in return, about 117,000 cobras are killed annually. It is a mighty fortunate thing for humanity on the frontier that the other serpents of the world know that it is a good thing to behave themselves, and not bite unnecessarily.
Fighting Its Own Kind. The Indian cobra, (Naia tripudians), is an exception to the rule of serpents that forbids fighting in the family. While cobras in captivity usually do live together in a state of vicious and fully-armed neutrality, sometimes they do fight. One of our cobras once attacked a cage-mate two-thirds the size of itself, vanquished it, seized it by the head and swallowed two-thirds of it before the tragedy was discovered. The assailant was compelled to disgorge his prey, but the victim was very dead.
The poison venom of the cobra, rattlesnake, bushmaster and puff adder is a great handicap on the social standing of the entire serpent family. Mankind in general abhors snakes, both in general and particular. The snake not actually known to be venomous usually is suspected of being so. It is only the strongest mental constitution that can permit a snake to go unkilled when the killing opportunity offers. It is just as natural for the lay brother to kill a chicken snake because it looks like a copperhead, or a hog-nosed blowing "viper" because it looks like a rattlesnake, as it is to shy at a gun that "may be loaded."
To American plainsmen, the non-aggressive temper of the rattlesnake is well known, and it is also a positive asset. I never knew one who was nervously afraid while sleeping in the open that snakes would come and crawl into his bed, or mix up with his camp. Of course all frontiersmen kill rattlers, as a sort of bounden duty to society, but I once knew an eastern man to turn loose a rattlesnake that he had photographed, in the observance of his principle never to kill an animal whose picture he had taken. Subsequently it was gravely reported that one of the restive horses of the outfit had "accidentally" killed that rattler by stepping upon it.
A Summary of Poisonous Snakes. There are about 300,000 poisonous snakes in the United States, and 110,000,000 people for them to bite; but more people are bitten by captive snakes than by wild ones.
A fool and his snake are soon parted.
There are 200,000 rattlesnakes in our country, but all of them will let you alone if you will let them alone.
If your police record is clear, you can sleep safely in the sage- brush.
If ever you need to camp in a cave, remember that in warm weather the rattlesnakes are all out hunting, and will not return until the approach of winter.
The largest snakes of the world exist only in the human mind.