Clifton College Scientific Society. 103 



entire stag of a large size ; and one taken at Bunda is re- 

 ported, in like manner, to liave swallowed a negro woman. 

 It is said that Ahisaumis, an Indian prince, had two ser- 

 pents — the one two hundred and ten feet long, and the 

 other one hundred and twenty feet. Suetonius, in the forty- 

 third chapter of the ' Lives of the Twelve Ctesars,' mentions 

 that the emperor Augustus, over and above the regular shows, 

 exhibited a snake seventy feet long. 



For the accuracy of the following story I can vouch. Mr. 

 Edwin, a resident in India, saw a serpent in the island of Cey- 

 lon that measured thirty feet four inches. It was covered with 

 scales, ridged in the middle. Its head was green with large 

 black spots in the middle, yellow streaks around the jaws, 

 a yellow circle, like a golden collar, around the neck, and 

 behind that was another black spot. Its head was flattish 

 and broad ; its eyes monstrously large, and very bright and 

 terrible. Its sides were of a dusky olive colour. Its back 

 was very beautiful ; a broad streak of black curled and wavered 

 at the sides, running along it ; on the edges of this appeared 

 a narrow streak of a fleshy colour, and outside there was a 

 broad streak of bright yellow, spotted at short distances with 

 long blotches of a blood colour. It had perched itself on a 

 large palm-tree. As a jackal passed by, it darted down upon 

 the unfortunate animal, and in a few minutes sucked him 

 into its belly. !Next morning a monstrous tiger, about the 

 height of a heifer, passing by, the serpent again darted down, 

 seized him by the back, and twined itself three or four times 

 around his body. It then loosed its teeth, and grasped the 

 tiger by the head, tearing and grinding, and shaking him all 

 at once, while the assaulted animal, in its fury, kept resisting 

 to the utmost. Finding the victory no easy one, and the 

 tiger's bones not readily to be broken by mere tail-winding 

 on the serpent's part, it dragged the victim to a tree, and 

 there setting him against it, turned itself round both him 

 and the tree, and crushed him so completely that his ribs, 

 the bones of his legs, and at last even his skull, were broken 

 and bruised. After it had killed the tiger with this inex- 

 pressible torture, extending over almost an entire day, it 

 covered the body with saliva till it became like a lump of red 

 flesh, and at last, with a labour of some hours, sucked up the 

 whole carcase into its capacious interior ; while in this gorged 

 state, Mr. Edwin and his companions kiUed it with clubs. 



I have introduced these anecdotes about Boas, because 

 they bear, I think, a close resemblance to the mythical tales 



