140 SNAKES. 



one to discern rings as in the little Coluber ; but as the 

 larynx is merely the upper part of the trachea, and as the 

 glottis is the mere membranous opening to the larynx, it 

 seems evident that the windpipe itself is also extensible, the 

 windpipe being, indeed, the only portion of the air-tube 

 sufficiently firm and resisting to aid the purpose of respira- 

 tion under such conditions. 



The exact distance which the tube is extended cannot 

 be accurately stated. It would not be equally protruded 

 in snakes of different sizes nor under different conditions. 

 Broderip saw it ' as much as a quarter of an inch.' Bingley, an 

 earlier and a less safe authority, says 'the windpipe projected 

 thi'ce inches beyond his jaws.' The keeper at the Gardens 

 thought he had sometimes seen it 'as much as two inches in the 

 largest snakes ; ' and my own impression was, one inch, at 

 least, in the python, and almost that in the large vipers. 



It is undoubtedly one of those interesting features worthy 

 of further investigation, and one is surprised that more 

 accurate information regarding it has not appeared in our 

 later encyclopedias and in the ' Proceedings of the Zoologi- 

 cal Societies.' 



So long ago as 1826, it was observed and confirmed by 

 the distinguished author of Zoological Researches, and Leaves 

 from the Notebook of a Naturalist. The author of British 

 Reptiles, who conducted the Zoological fotirnal when Mr. 

 Broderip contributed the valuable paper above quoted, 

 added a note by special request, stating that his own 'not 

 unfrequent observations have on every point been completely 

 confirmatory of those above recorded ' by W. J. Broderip, 

 Esq. 



