584 SNAKES. 



a vigorous constrictor caught and killed its prey in one flash, 

 as when an extended watch-spring flies back to its original 

 position. But a half-constricted creature does suffer, and 

 happily this does not often occur, the chilly weather that day 

 diminishing ophidian energy considerably. A gentleman, 

 disappointed because they did not eat, and wishing to assign 

 some reason for such unaccountable abstinence, remarked to 

 his friend, ' I have an idea they sting themselves.' 



Watching these gigantic ophidians on one of those half- 

 wintry days, it happened that two of them were lazily 

 gliding, partially hidden by their blanket, and with neither 

 heads nor tails visible, so that the two bodies seemed as 

 only one snake. Two youths stood watching and vainly 

 endeavouring to calculate the numbers of feet or of yards 

 which were entwined and entwisted in those moving coils. 

 Portions and loops of two other pythons in the same cage 

 were visible beyond the rug, but only one head of all the 

 four snakes was to be seen ; and to distinguish to which 

 of the gliding, shining curves that head belonged, was im- 

 possible. * It seems to me that snake's such a length that 

 he doesn't know the other part belongs to him,' remarked 

 one boy to his friend. 



* I don't think he knows where it is,' returned the other 

 boy sympathetically. 



Not a little are the keepers sometimes tried in replying to 

 the inquiries of visitors desirous of improving their minds. 

 Let me repeat one or two conversations overheard on those 

 Fridays. 



' Is that duck put in there for the snake to eat "t ' asked a 

 respectably dressed man of the keeper on one of those 



