se provision for the animal's preservation; for
were his skull brittle, his habit of crawling on the ground would render
it very liable to be fractured. The spinal cord runs down the entire
length of the body; this being wounded, the animal is disabled or killed
instanter. Strike therefore his tail, and not his head; for at his tail
the spinal cord is but thinly covered with bone, and suffers readily
from injury. This practice is applicable to eels. If you want to kill an
eel, it is not much use belaboring his head: strike, however, his tail
two or three times against any hard substance, and he is quickly dead.

About four years ago I myself, in person, had painful experience of the
awful effects of snake's poison. I have received a dose of the cobra's
poison into my system; luckily a minute dose, or I should not have
survived it. The accident happened in a very curious way. I was poisoned
by the snake but not bitten by him. I got the poison second-hand.
Anxious to witness the effects of the poison of the cobra upon a rat, I
took up a couple in a bag alive to a certain cobra. I took one rat out
of the bag and put him into the cage with the snake. The cobra was
coiled up among the stones in the centre of the cage, apparently asleep.
When he heard the noise of the rat falling into the cage, he just looked
up and put out his tongue, hissing at the same time. The rat got in a
corner and began washing himself, keeping one eye on the snake, whose
appearance he evidently did not half like. Presently the rat ran across
the snake's body, and in an instant the latter assumed his fighting
attitude. As the rat passed the snake, he made a dart, but missing his
aim, hit his nose a pretty hard blow against the side of the cage. This
accident seemed to anger him, for he spread out his crest and waved it
to and fro in the beautiful manner peculiar to his kind. The rat became
alarmed and ran near him again. Again cobra made a dart, and bit him,
but did not, I think, inject any poison into him, the rat being so very
active; at least, no symptoms of poisoning were shown. The bite
nevertheless aroused the ire of the rat, for he gathered himself for a
spring, and measuring his distance, sprang right on to the neck of the
cobra, who was waving about in front of him. This plucky rat, determined
to die hard, gave the cobra two or three severe bites in the neck, the
snake keeping his body erect all this time, and endeavoring to turn his
head roun