278 JOURNAL OP THE TRINIDAD 



until very recently I had never seen one do so. Once some time 

 ago a tigre killed soir,e birds but when attempting to eat them 

 was accidentally frightened and gave up the task. The other 

 day, however, I thought I would try again as I had often done 

 and I threw a young rat to two tigres. One of them suddenly 

 sprang at it. Now it should be remembered that the Tigre is 

 not a constrictor, he does not belong to the pythons or the boas. 

 He is a coluber and hunts his pre} 7 . He hunted that rat up and 

 down the large cage until he caught him and then to my 

 astonishment killed him by constriction in true boa fashion and 

 then swallowed him. Mice he would swallow alive without 

 constricting. Mr. Urich came to see this snake feed but the 

 lively rat escaped him as the tigre } 'lunged at it and to our 

 amusement the snake seized a dried piece of excreta of the size 

 of two walnuts and bolted that. Evidently snakes have little 

 sense of taste. I was afraid this would kill him but it didn't. 

 Since then he has fed readily. Snakes occasionally overgorge 

 themselves, especially young ones, and this has happened several 

 times lately. For some time I have been desirous of getting the 

 Trinidad Trigonocephalus (Atrox) to feed and though I 

 have had several specimens, without success. The other day 

 much against my will — because it seemed so impossible that 

 vipers should eat batrachians and it is against the evidence 

 afforded by all the T. atrox I have ever seen that they should 

 eat anything but fur or feathers — I tried frogs. I dropped one 

 in the box. In an hour or two he disappeared. I tried another, 

 so did he. A third, he vanished but I afterwards found him 

 under the snake coils alive and well. A fourth T found in the 

 snake's mouth. Then he ate half-a-dozen. In a week or two's 

 time he was eating his proper food, mice and rats. Now we have 

 dealt with the pythons and vipers and tigres, in captivity, let us 

 see how snakes behave in their native wilds. A short time 

 before the last peripatus discussion in the public press, I was 

 near the Botanic Gardens in a ravine which has yielded numbers 

 of those strange creatures, I heard a rustle and looking a little 

 way off I saw a little "Machete couesse " {Coluber boddaerti), I 

 stood still. The little creature was as busy as busy could be pushing 

 his head into every little cranny. Now and again he would rush otf 

 after some small frogs near but I did not see him catch one. He 

 startled a large cricket which went away with long leaps of some 

 times eight or nine feet. The snake chased the cricket at least 

 thirty feet, every time it dropped after one of its flights, he darted 

 towards the p^ce with a speed which was almost incredible in a 

 little thing scarce 10 inches long. "While I watched I saw a 

 Beh-belle-chemin (Liophis-melanotus) come out of a hole. He too 

 was hunting little frogs with an assiduity and intelligence 

 which I never expected to see a snake exhibit. These 



