As we pass to the opposite side of the serpent-room, where the venomous kinds are kept, we perceive that a more cautious arrangement is made for feeding. The door opens at the top instead of at the sides of their dens, and with good reason; for no sooner does the keeper remove with a crooked iron rod the blanket from the cobra, than the reptile springs, with inflated hood, into an S-like attitude, and darts laterally at his enemy. He seems incapable of striking well any object above or below his level: watch, for instance, that guinea-pig: again and again he dashes at it, but misses his aim; now he hits it, but only to drive the poor frightened creature with a score of flying pebbles before him: when at last he succeeds in piercing the sides of his victim, tetanic spasms immediately commence, and it dies convulsed in a few seconds. It is said by those who have watched venomous snakes, that the manner of dying exhibited by their stricken prey discloses the nature of the reptile that inflicted the poisoned wound. It is scarcely necessary to state that the popular idea that the tongue darts forth the venom is a fallacy. The poison is contained in glands which lie at the root of the fangs on either side, and, by the compression of the powerful muscles which make the head appear so broad and flat, it is forced into the fine tube which runs at the sides of the fang, and finds its exit near the point by a minute opening. The cobra at present in the collection, with its skin a glossy black and yellow, its eye black and angry, its motions agile and graceful, seems to be the very personification of India. As we watch it when ready to spring, we suddenly remember that only a film of glass stands between us and "pure death." But there is nothing to fear: the python, in the adjoining room, which weighs a hundred and twenty pounds, being incensed on his first arrival at being removed from his box, darted with all his force at a spectator. Yet the pane of glass had strength enough to bring him up, and he fell back so bruised about the head and muzzle by the collision, that he could not feed well for several months. The cobra that we see is the same that destroyed its keeper. In a fit of drunkenness, the man, against express orders, took the reptile out, and, placing its head inside his waistcoat, allowed it to glide round his body. When it had emerged from under his clothes from the other side, apparently in good humour, he squeezed its tail, when it struck him between his eyes; in twenty minutes his consciousness was gone, and in less than three hours he was dead. Before we leave this reptile-room, let us peep for a moment into the little apartment opening from the corner, where, hanging from the wall, we see all the cast-off dresses of the serpents. If the keeper will allow us to handle one of them for a moment, we shall see that it is indeed an entire suit of light-brown colour and of gauzy texture, which