Animals: Sizzling Cobra

A stout gentleman in an upper berth bound to Washington from Manhattan last week was annoyed by what he thought were sizzling snores from the lower berth. Below slept the kindhearted snakeman of the Bronx Zoo, Dr. Raymond Lee Ditmars, no snorer. Dr. Ditmars did not tell anyone, but his feet were resting upon a leather traveling bag in which was a 14-ft. king cobra for the national zoo’s new reptile house, about to open in Washington. The cobra, which chills easily, was sizzling happily like a peanut stand, grateful for the warmth of the Ditmars feet.