The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations

Incidentally, I would like very much to know just what our present twelve-foot cobra thought when, upon its arrival at its present home, its total blindness was relieved by the thrillingly skilful removal of the two layers of dead scales that had closed over and finally adhered to each orbit. The vision of the king cobra is keen, and its temper is not easily ruffled. Its temperament seems to be sanguine, which is just the opposite of the nervous-combative hooded and spectacled cobra species. The So-called "Snake Charmers" of India. Herpetologists generally discredit the idea that a peripatetic Hindu can "charm" a cobra any farther or more quickly than any snake-keeper. In the first place, the fangs of the serpent are totally removed,--by a very savage and painful process. After that, the unfortunate snake is in no condition to fight or to flee. It seeks only to be let alone, and the musical-pipe business is to impress the mind of the observer. Serpent Psychology an Unplowed Field. At this date (1922) we know only the rudiments of serpent intelligence and temperament. In the wilds, serpents are most elusive and difficult to determine. In captivity they are passive and undemonstrative. We do not know how much memory they have, they rarely show what they think, and on most subjects we do not know where they stand. But the future will change all this. During the past twenty years the number of herpetologists in the United States has increased about tenfold. It is fairly impossible that serpent psychology should much longer remain unstudied, and unrevealed along the lines of plain common- sense.