158 



SNAKES. 



yawn, as if trying hard to breathe. By and by, when 

 reh'eved from its clog and safely consigned to a box with 

 bars on the top, it began to make up for loss of time by 

 breathing violently, 'the expirations sounding like high- 

 pressure steam escaping from a locomotive. This continued 

 for some hours, of four and a half respirations a minute,' 

 when the breathing — in this case we may say panting — 

 gradually subsided, and then the poor thing settled down 

 into silence.^ 



The expression of feelings by the tail in so many snakes, 

 producing a sibilant sound in rustling dead leaves, and in 

 some which are supposed never to hiss, is a subject well 

 worth the attention of scientific naturalists. It would be 

 interesting to ascertain if any peculiarity of trachea or 

 of glottis exist in these. 



^ Travels hi the Amazons, p. 47. By A. R. Wallace. London, 1853. 



