202 SNAKES. 



the keeper had just put into the cage. The birds, eyeing 

 certain insects among the gravel, seemed all unconscious of 

 the pair of glistening eyes looking down upon them. 

 Suddenly a movement, a flicker, like the flash of a whip, and 

 the snake had changed its position. Too quick for us to 

 follow the motion, but in that flash of time it now hung 

 like a pendulum, with a sparrow almost hidden in its 

 coils. The snake had precisely measured its distance, 

 reached down, and recoiled with the swiftness of an elastic 

 spring. After a few mmutts,, feeling that its prey was dead, 

 it prepared to swallow it, holding it encircled in a portion 

 of its body, while the head was free to commence the usual 

 examination. Still hanging there, it held and devoured the 

 bird. 



On another occasion, one of the larger pythons caught a 

 guinea-pig in the same manner. This also was so quick in 

 its movements that one scarcely knew what had happened 

 until the snake was seen to have changed its position, 

 some of the anterior coils had embraced a something, and 

 a quadruped was missing. This snake also still hung while 

 eating its meal, the whole process occupying less than ten 

 minutes. In both these cases we saw the prehensile tail 

 in its natural use, while the rest of the body was free 

 for action. 



One of the most remarkable cases of what w^e may call 

 independent constricting powers, that is, two or more parts 

 of the reptile being engaged at the same time, was in some 

 very hungry, or very greedy, or very sagacious little 

 constrictors, the ' four-rayed snakes,' ElapJiis qiLUter-radiatus. 



They are slender for their length, which may be from 



