﻿96 INTRODUCTION 



after rejected through the mouth as a pellet. Other 

 snakes, such as Coluber and Lioheterodon show them- 

 selves partial to eggs in addition to live prey, but 

 their alimentary canal does not depart from the 

 normal, the eggs being broken in the stomach and 

 the remains of the shells passed with the excrements. 



The Amblycephalidse subsist almost entirely on 

 snails and slugs, the shells of the former being 

 crushed in the anterior part of the intestine after 

 their contents have been digested, and the debris are 

 rejected through the vent. A small land tortoise has 

 been found in the stomach of a Cobra {Naia haie) 

 from Algeria. 



Snakes which take large prey secure it according 

 to three methods : By catching it simply with the 

 jaws, and immediately proceeding to swallow it, as 

 in Tropidonotus and in some of the Constrictors when 

 dealing with small animals ; by constriction, after 

 having seized it with the jaws, crushing it in the 

 coils of their body and thus killing it previous 

 to feeding, as in the Boidae and Coluber; or by 

 poisoning, by a mere stroke with the fangs, the 

 result being awaited before the meal is begun, as in 

 most of the Viperidae. Other poisonous snakes 

 proceed according to the first method, the use of the 

 venom being to reduce the struggles of the victim 

 and to relax its muscles. Such snakes as are in the 

 habit of previously killing their prey show little 

 reluctance to accept dead food in confinement, a 



