uberose. These odorous
flowers are short-lived and drop to the ground almost as quickly as
they come, being followed in due course by large crimson berries,
quite as ornamental as the flowers and nearly as large as the common
New England cherry. Within the pulp the double seeds are ripened which
form the coffee berry of commerce. The view of a thrifty plantation at
sunrise, when each spray is dripping with refreshing dew and every
little branch is diamond-capped, is lovely beyond expression.

A surprise awaited us on one occasion while visiting a coffee
plantation near Kandy. Seeing a snake over four feet in length moving
along unmolested on the path in front of the bungalow which was
occupied by the planter's family, it was quite impossible to suppress
an exclamation. Our host smiled pleasantly as he explained that the
creature was not only tolerated about the house, but that it was a
pet! It seems that these reptiles are often kept to kill and drive
away the coffee-rats, as they are called, a certain species of rodents
which are often alarmingly abundant on these estates, and terribly
destructive to the growing crops. They are twice the size of an
ordinary rat, such as is common with us. They feed upon birds,
blossoms, and ripe berries of the coffee to an unlimited extent, if
not interfered with. The snake is their natural enemy, and is more
destructive among them than a well-trained domestic cat would be. In
fact, these rats would be more than a match for an ordinary cat. So
the fer-de-lance is a great rat destroyer among the sugar plantations
of Martinique, a snake which is as poisonous as the cobra of Ceylon.
Does the reader remember that it was one of this species of West
Indian serpents which bit Josephine, the future empress of France,
when she was a mere child in her island home, and that her faithful
negro nurse saved the child's life by instantly drawing the poison
from the wound with her own lips? At Para, in Brazil, the author has
seen young anacondas six and eight feet long also kept upon the
plantations as rat catchers. Any of these serpents make very little of
swallowing a rat which they have themselves caught, but they promptly
refuse such as have been killed by a trap or other means. The Ceylon
cobra cannot cope with the mongoose, whose safety in a conflict with
this reptile lies in its extraordinary activity. The mongoose avoids
the dash of the cobra and pins it by the back of the neck,
persistently