SNAKES 



III 



Reticulated Python, is just under thirty- three feet in 

 length, and the various accounts which have from time 

 to time been given by travellers of encounters with snakes 

 of over fifty feet long, are absolutely untrustworthy. 



The age to which snakes live can only be judged by 

 their rate of growth in captivity, the thirty-foot-long 

 specimens being probably close on a century old. 



The members of the two families Typhlopid^ and 

 Glauconiid^ are small, worm-like creatures, with teeth 



Fig. 7. — Head of Glauconia blanjordii. 



in one of the jaws only, without enlarged ventral shields, 

 with minute eyes, more or less hidden under the scales, 

 and with a short, stump-like tail, which often terminates 

 in a small spine. The body, the posterior portion of 

 which is sometimes much thicker than the anterior, is 

 covered with highly polished scales. 



The distinction between the two families lies in the 

 fact that whereas in the Typhlopidce the teeth are restricted 

 to the upper jaw, in the Glauconiidce the reverse is the case, 

 the lower jaw only being toothed. 



These snakes are distributed over the greater part of 

 the world, and are mostly of very small size, some measuring 

 but six inches in length. They are all burrowers, and only 



