COBRA MEETS ITS MATCH.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLII, Issue 9474, 6 March 1922, Page 8

COBRA MEETS ITS MATCH.

CAT ASSISTS TWO BIRDS. An extraordinary story of the fight of a cobra with two birds and a cat is told by a Madras correspondent in the Daily Express. The man was sitting in his compound reading, when he was disturbed by a pair of green birds chirping as if in distress, and wheeling and darting violently. These birds had their nest in a low thorn tree close by, and at the I'oot of the tree a huge cobra was coiled, evidently bent on capturing the bu'ds’ eggs. Every time the snake made an attempt to climb the green birds swooped on its head, which it was obliged to hide for fear of losing its eyes. Then a cat, which had been watching, advanced to the attack. As she drew near the cobra became aware of her and reared up to its full height, with hood expanded, and a struck out with a hideous hiss, only to meet the ground, for the cat side-stepped lightly, and before her opponent had time to withdraw his head scored a. hit with her paw. The enraged cobra hissed and struck again and again, only to be rewarded each time with a nasty scrape from the cat’s claws. Suddenly the cobra beat a hasty retreat, with the cat in hot pursuit, and the correspondent was able) to. get liis shotgun into action, reducing the snake to a heap of writhing coils.