176 THE VIVARIUM. 
arranged with their points slanting towards the throat. The 
teeth, therefore, can only be used for seizing, holding, and 
forcing the prey down the gullet, and not for division. or 
mastication. Hence, Snakes are obliged to swallow their food 
undivided. And owing to the wonderful and unique arrangement 
of their jaws, the extreme dilatability of their throat or gullet, 
the absence of a sternum, or breast-bone, the looseness of their 
ribs and the great elasticity of their skin these strange creatures 
are able to swallow prey of a diameter far exceeding that of their 
own body. 
Snakes in the matter of deatotanion are able, in the estimation 
of the uninitiated, to do the impossible. For example, I was one 
day showing to a very near relative of mine a small Four-rayed 
Snake (Elaphis quater-radiatus), not much more than 3ft. in 
length, and I told him that the Snake could swallow, whole, a 
full-grown dead house-sparrow which I held in my hand. And I 
heard in reply, ‘‘Of course I believe what you say, but it seems 
to me that the Snake will have to perform an utter impossibility.” 
The Snake, being very tame, readily took the dead bird, and in 
two or three minutes had swallowed it, claws, beak, and feathers 
altogether. 
People have several times told me their inability to believe 
that, for instance, a Common English Grass Snake (7'ropidonotus 
natriz) can swallow a full-grown frog (Rana temporaria). This, 
however, it generally is quite ready to do. Indeed, I have 
possessed for a very long time a beautiful variety of the Grass 
Snake, not 3ft. in length, which will occasionally take two large 
frogs, one after the other. . 
A full-sized Grass Snake will cemntinnes swallow even as many 
as three frogs at one feeding-time. When a Snake has partaken 
of a very large meal, the skin of the body, in places, is so stretched 
that the scales are quite separated one from another. This ex- 
pansion of skin, especially about the neck of the Reptile, takes 
place in a greater or less degree whenever it swallows its prey. 
We had an instance a little while ago, in the so-called 
‘“‘ Tragedy at the Zoo,” of the Snake’s powers of deglutition. Two 
Boa Constrictors, one about 11ft. in length, the other about 9ft., 
were in the same case, when, one night, at feeding-time, the 
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