the same size was found the same morning in an adjoining drain.[3] On this occasion the snake, which had been several hours in the well, swam with ease, raising its head and hood above water; and instances have repeatedly occurred of the cobra de capello voluntarily taking considerable excursions by sea.  When the “Wellington,” a government vessel employed in the conservancy of the pearl banks, was anchored about a quarter of a mile from land, in the bay of Koodremale, a cobra was seen, about an hour before sunset, swimming vigorously towards the ship.  It came within twelve yards, when the sailors assailed it with billets of wood and other missiles, and forced it to return to land.  The following morning they discovered the track which it had left on the shore, and traced it along the sand till it disappeared in the jungle.[4] On a later occasion, in the vicinity of the same spot, when the “Wellington” was lying at some distance from the shore, a cobra was found and killed on board, where it could only have gained access by climbing up the cable.  It was first discovered by a sailor, who felt the chill as it glided over his foot.[5]

[Footnote 1:  A Singhalese work, the Sarpa Doata, quoted in the Ceylon Times, January, 1857, enumerates four species of the cobra;—­the raja, or king; the velyander, or trader; the baboona, or hermit; and the goore, or agriculturist.  The young cobras, it says, are not venomous till after the thirteenth day, when they shed their coat for the first time.]

[Footnote 2:  Coryphodon Blumenbachii.  WOLF, in his interesting story of his Life and Adventures in Ceylon, mentions that rat-snakes were often so domesticated by the natives as to feed at their table.  He says:  “I once saw an example of this in the house of a native.  It being meal time, he called his snake, which immediately came forth from the roof under which he and I were sitting.  He gave it victuals from his own dish, which the snake took of itself from off a fig-leaf that was laid for it, and ate along with its host.  When it had eaten its fill, he gave it a kiss and bade it go to its hole.”

Since the above was written, Major Skinner, writing to me 12th Dec. 1858, mentions the still more remarkable case of the domestication of the cobra de capello in Ceylon.  “Did you ever hear,” he says, “of tame cobras being kept and domesticated about a house, going in and out at pleasure, and in common with the rest of the inmates?  In one family, near Negombo, cobras are kept as protectors, in the place of dogs, by a wealthy man who has always large sums of money in his house.  But this is not a solitary case of the kind.  I heard of it only the other day, but from undoubtedly good authority.  The snakes glide about the house, a terror to thieves, but never attempting to harm the inmates.”]

[Footnote 3:  PLINY notices the affection that subsists between the male and female asp; and that if one of them happens to be killed, the other seeks to avenge its death.—­Lib. viii. c. 37.]