Show a pOISonous Monarch monarch among poisonous snakes is the enormous hamadryad which grows to be as much as 14 feet in length and is so fierce that it will sometimes attack and even chase any one who ventures near to its nest Native snake Charmers who will handle the fiercest cobras fearlessly fear-lessly are usually loath to touch a hamadryad ha-madryad though I have occasionally seen a large specimen of this venomous reptile in their bags It lays its eggs in a heap of decaying leaves whiSh it collects col-lects for the purpose and sits upon the top to keep off intruders A road through the jungle will sometimes be closed against all comers by a pair of these snakes and woe betide the unfortunate traveler who stumbles unawares upon the nest The hamadryad feeds largely upon other snakes but it is fortunately i somewhat rare Curiously enough it is not always aggressive Indeed it sometimes some-times happens that it is quite unwilling to strike Superficially it is not unlike a harmless rock snake and not very long ago in Burmah a man brought one In from the jungle and kept it loose in his house for some days under the impression im-pression that it was one of these creatures crea-tures During thewhole of its captivity it never attempted to bite any on e and its captor who h d ° n 1 ing it abr p t tour snake vam i of his captiveMcOluro a l y e |