Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 February 1895 — THE COBRA-STONE. [ARTICLE]

THE COBRA-STONE.

Cxplnnatlon of a Mysterious About Suakcs Current in India. The cobras are perhaps tho only serpents which will cat insects. They feed on ants, grasshoppers,, a variety of beetles, etc., but seem to have a special preference for fire-flies, perhaps because the latter can he caught at night much more easily than any other kind of insect. I have often for hours watched cobras in the grass catching the fire-flies, darting about here and there, a process which requires considerable exertion on the part of the serpent. Now, every entomologist knows that the flying lampy- . rid® consist entirely of males. The females, which are not very numerous, are much larger and cannot fly, as they have only rudimentary wings. They sit quietly in the grass,' emitting a greenish light, which is much strongei than that of the males, and fades and becomes brilliant at regular intervals. If a glowworm be watched for a tima a steady current of male insects will be observed flying toward it, and’ alighting in close proximity. Now it so happens that the naja- 1 kallu, this little pebble of chlorophane or fluor-spar, .emits in the dark sj greenish light which is so much like, that of the female lampyris that it is aneasy matter to deceive the male fire-fly; with it, by setting it up as a decoy'.; The cobras have gradually come toi take advantage of an experience made.j by them, accidentally, I dare .say,; thousands of years ago. It may frequently happen, for instance, that a cobra iindiogy of these shining stones' in the gravel of tho dry river-beds (where they are by no means uncommon), being attracted to it by its glow at night, and taking it for a glowworm.' It would then, at any rate, notice that the fire-flies could bo caught inuch more easily and quickly in the rfeighborhood of that .shining object than anywhere else, and, would habitually return to it. Several cobras might thus come together, and there would be competition, and from this moment to the finding out that success in capturing fire-flies depends on the possession of this phosphorescent pebble, and to the seizing or it in order to prevent another snake from monopolizing it, is, in my opinion, no great step, and involves no exceptional powers of reasoning. The cobra carries it abouq and some learns to treasure it, for it affords it an easy means of getting its living. All it has to do is to deposit the stone in the grass at night, and the obliging insects literally illy down its throat. ’ There are even reasons for believing that no individual ox[>erience is non necessary to cause any cobra to act in this manner, hut that even a young cobra, on finding such a stone, will inatinctivelv take it up, and use it in the manner f have described. For it must bo borne in mind that there is an inherited race memory among the lowci animals which is often far strongei than the memory gathered during th< short lifetime of tho individual. Wbai causes a blind kitten to spit and put ui its back if a dog Is brought near it? Il never saw a dog. never saw anything; yet it knows there is some dangci ahead. Thus the accumulated expo, rienco of the cobra’s ancestors during countloss generations now causes it U act in a manner which we refer to instinct. Such are the remarkable facts connected with the naja-kallu. the cobra's shining stone. Who can toll whetbei the old traditions of snakes . carrying precious stones, of which we -still find traces in our fairy tales, may not hav< their souroe in some such fact as this? —Professor H. HeuMldt, Ph. D., it, Harper'» Magazine. .....