186 OPHIDIA. — BOADiE. 



captured, not without loss of human life, in 

 Egypt, and which was taken to Alexandria ; it 

 measured thirty cubits, or about forty -five feet in 

 length. And Suetonius tells us that one was ex- 

 hibited in front of the Comitium at Rome, which 

 was fifty cubits, or seventy -five feet long. 



Perhaps none of these examples were very 

 accurately measured ; or if we must suppose 

 that the first was so, we may remark, that the 

 skin of a Serpent, dragged ofi'byrude and un- 

 scientific hands, is capable of stretching to an 

 enormous extent ; but with every allowance, it is 

 evident that unless we reject the testimony of 

 history, specimens of Serpents were seen in an- 

 cient times which very far exceeded any that have 

 fallen under modern, or, at least, scientific obser- 

 vation. Some of the largest on modern record 

 we will briefly recapitulate. The subject of 

 Daniell's picture is said to have been sixty -two 

 feet ; but this is probably exaggerated : the spe- 

 cimen whose capture is narrated in the " Edin- 

 burgh Literary Gazette" was " nearly" forty 

 feet ; those which M'Leod saw at Whidah must 

 have been thirty-two feet or more ; Bontius 

 speaks of some upwards of thirty -six feet ; an 

 American Boa is mentioned by Bingley, of the 

 same length, the skin of which was in the cabinet 

 of the Prince of Orange ; Shaw speaks of a skin 

 in the British Museum which measured thirty- 

 five feet ; and finally, Dr. A. Smith saw a speci- 

 men of Python Natalensis, twenty-five feet long, 

 though a portion of the tail was wanting. 



We illustrate the genus by a figure of the 

 Tiger Python {Python tigris, Daud.), one of the 

 most beautiful in its markings of the whole 



