258 SNAKES. 



* "Severally declared and subscribed at Liverpool aforesaid, the tenth day of 

 January, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven, before T. S. Raffles, 

 J. P. for Liverpool.'" 



In the above descriptions there is no mention of fins, 

 flippers, or mane, but simply the manners of a huge con- 

 strictor, with the head and the tail free, and the middle 

 portion of its body engaged in crushing the prey, a process 

 which may at any time be seen in a captive constrictor 

 seizing its food. The * whirling its victim ' was, no doubt, 

 in the struggle between the two, the whale using its power- 

 ful efforts to escape, but being overcome at last. Nor in 

 comparison with the size of the described serpent would a 

 whale be impracticably large. 



Again, in the next one seen, the true serpent motion is 

 unintentionally exhibited in the 'shooting itself along the 

 surface, the head and neck being several feet out of water.' 

 Snakes continually advance with their heads elevated ; and 

 their rapid, darting movements are well expressed by 

 * shooting.' 



'A few minutes after, it was seen elevated some sixty 

 feet perpendicularly in the air.' Sixty feet at a guess. 

 Unless some mast, the precise height of which was known, 

 or some other perpendicular object were in close proximity, 

 it would be exceedingly difficult to estimate the height. 

 To an unaccustomed eye even twenty or thirty feet of snake 

 suddenly darting upright from the waves would be a startling 

 and bewildering spectacle ; yet we know that land snakes 

 raise themselves in this manner one-third, one-half, or for 

 a moment even more than that ; 'stand erect,' some physio- 

 logists have stated (see p. 181); so again, unintentionally, 



