Cobra
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Cobra. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
or COBRA DE CAPELLO, a species of snake, the Coluber Naja of Linnæus, now called Naja or Naia tripudians. It belongs to the family Viperidæ. The head has nine plates behind and is broad, the neck is very expansile, covering the head like a hood, the tail round. The color is brown above and bluish-white beneath. When the disk is dilated the hinder part of it exhibits dark markings like a pair of spectacles E. M. Newman RUINS OF TYUENI, A GREAT COMMUNAL HOUSE OF MORE THAN TWO HUNDRED ROOMS Enc. Vol. 3-p. 36 Underwood & Underwood PIER Photo, Ewing Galloway COAL PIER AT CHARLESTON, S. C. Photo, Ewing Galloway COAL BINS WITH COAL TRAIN AND CHUTES, CINCINNATI, OHIO International Film Service HEADQUARTERS OF AMERICAN ARMY OF OCCUPATION AT COBLENZ E. M. Newman MUKDEN, CHINA. THE AMERICAN CONSULATE IN A BUILDING THAT WAS E. M. Newman SEDAN CHAIR AND CHINESE COOLIES, ONE OF WHOM WEARS A RAINCOAT OF DRIED GRASS E. M. Newman JINRIKISHA DRAWN BY A CHINESE COOLIE GARDEN OF THE GODS, COLORADO. CATHEDRAL SPIRES AND MOTOR ROADS Photo, Ewing Galloway THE DOUBLE HAIRPIN MADE BY THE ROAD ON LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN NEAR DENVER reversed, whence it is sometimes called the spectacle snake. The common name is, however, the Portuguese one, Cobra, C. capella, C. de or di capello. It is from two to four or even six feet long, is common in India, and is so venomous that it COBRA causes the death of more people than does the tiger. Notwithstanding this, it is kept in various temples, fed with milk and sugar, and worshiped.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a venomous Indian serpent of the viper family. The cobra belongs to the class of hooded snakes. It is marked on the back of the neck with a figure resembling a pair of spectacles. It is sometimes called the "spectacled snake." It is a slender, active, deadly animal, about four feet long, infesting footpaths and copses. In the rainy season it takes refuge under the huts of the people. It makes its way into thatched roofs. It strikes without provocation and without warning. There is no certain antidote for its venom. As the peasants of India go barefooted, it is not strange that from 10,000 to 20,000 deaths from the bite of the cobra are reported annually. The government of India offers a standing bounty for its extirpation. Snake charmers go about enticing these dread serpents from their holes with tame snakes and music; then kill them. The cobra breeds rapidly; fifteen to twenty eggs are deposited in litter anywhere, and in a few days there are as many little cobras. The mongoose is the cobra's deadly foe. Kipling's Second Jungle Book describes a spirited contest between Rikki-tikki-tavi, the mongoose, and the venomous cobras. See Mongoose; Asp
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Both accounts place the cobra in the viper family; it is in fact an elapid (family Elapidae), a separate lineage from the true vipers, and Naja tripudians is now Naja naja, the Indian cobra. Aiton's 1910 statement that "there is no certain antidote for its venom" had in fact just been overtaken: Albert Calmette produced the first antivenom against cobra venom at the Pasteur Institute in the 1890s, and polyvalent antivenom covering the cobra, krait, saw-scaled viper and Russell's viper is now standard treatment in India. The scale of the problem proved far larger than the "10,000 to 20,000 deaths" then reported — modern mortality studies put Indian snakebite deaths in the tens of thousands each year, and the World Health Organization added snakebite envenoming to its list of neglected tropical diseases in 2017. The bounty for extirpation is long gone: Indian cobras are protected under the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, and the snake charming trade the entry describes has been illegal for decades.
Written for this edition, 2026.