CHAPTER XII. 



OPHIDIAN ACROBATS: CONSTRUCTION AND 

 CONSTRICTION. 



BEFORE discussing the most remarkable of all ophidian 

 caudal appendages, the Crotalus rattle, and the many 

 speculations regarding it, we will enumerate some other 

 acrobatic achievements of which snakes are capable ; as, in 

 accounting for these, some interesting facts appertaining to 

 their anatomical structure can be described. 



A humorous journalist has said, ' There is apparently no- 

 thing that a snake can not do, except swallow a porcupine.' ^ 

 Presuming that he alludes to physical feats, he is not far 

 from wrong. For all that, the Western pioneers of America 

 tell us of yet one more thing that these reptiles cannot 

 accomplish, and that is, cross over a rope of horse-hair. 



' Since this was in type, I find that not even a porcupine is safe from a hungry 



snake. In vol. xliii. of the Philosophical Transactions (1744), p. 271, is a letter 



from a gentleman in India, who states that on an island near Bombay a dead 



snake was found with the quills of a porcupine 'sticking out of its Belly. ' The 



snake had 'sucked it in Head foremost, while the Quills were flatted down. 



Afterwards they rose and ran through the Snake's Belly, and so killed it.' The 



pressure of the jaws had ' flatted ' the quills, but not killed the animal, which, 



when in its expansile tomb, had, though vainly, erected its natural armour. 



192 



