It is pleasant to see tame elephants at work, or bathing in the rivers with their drivers (Plate XV.). They carry timber, they carry goods along the high-roads, they are useful in many ways where great strength is needed. The Maharajas of India always keep a well-filled elephant stable, but employ the animals mostly for tiger-hunting and riding. The elephant is to them a show animal which is never absent on occasions of ceremony. Old well-trained animals which carry themselves with royal dignity fetch, therefore, a very high price. THE COBRA The cobra, or spectacled snake, is the most poisonous snake in India. It is very general in all parts of India, in Further India, in southern China, in the Sunda Islands, and Ceylon. Its colour is sometimes yellowish, shading into blue, sometimes brown, and dirty white on the under side. It is about five feet long. When it is irritated it raises up the front part of its body like a swan's neck, spreads out the eight foremost pairs of ribs at the sides, so that a hat or shield-shaped hood is formed below the head. The rest of the body is curled round, and gives the creature firm support when it balances the upper part of its body ready to inflict its poisonous bite with lightning speed. On the back of its hood are yellow markings like a pair of spectacles. The cobra lives in old walls or heaps of stone and timber, under roots, or in dead trunks in the forest, in fact anywhere where he can find a sheltered hole. He does not avoid human dwellings, and he may often be seen, heavy and motionless, rolled up before his hole. But as soon as a man approaches he glides quickly and noiselessly into his hole, and if attacked defends himself with a weapon which is as dangerous as a revolver. He is a day snake, but avoids sunshine and heat and prefers to seek his food after sunset. He should more properly be described as a snake of the twilight. He glides under the close brushwood of the jungle in pursuit of lizards and frogs, birds, eggs, and rats or other small animals that come in his way. On his roamings he also climbs up trees and creeping plants, and swims across large streams. It might be thought that a vessel anchored off the coast would be safe from cobras, but cases have been known of these snakes swimming out, crawling up the anchor chains, and creeping on board. The female lays a score of long eggs as large as a pigeon's, but with a soft shell. The male and female are believed to entertain a great affection for each other, for it has been noticed that when one of them is killed, the other is shortly seen at the same spot.