.1 PYTIIOX FROM Tin-: PJI/LIl'riXES 



113 





the forest to visit a trap set for wild curahaos. They kiUed the monster 

 with their l)oh)s, and on eutting it open found tlie hoar, estimated to weigfi 

 one hundred and twenty-five pounds. 



There has come down from ancient writers a large hody of exaggerations 

 in similar stories, the snake sometimes reaching one hundred and twenty feet 

 and the prey the size of an elephant. The truth, howe\er, is strange enough 

 to leave no need for exaggeration. The New ^'ork Zoological Park reports 

 that a f'orty-jxnind pig is the largest that has been given to its twenty-foot 

 regal python, hut that the snake could probably dispose of one of sixty or 

 .seventy pounds. The .lounud of the HotitJxuj Xntund llisidry Sociciij for \\)()~ 

 records the swallowing of a 



four-foot leopard by an In- 'T 



dian python, the world's sec- 

 ond largest snake, and Zoolog- 

 seller Anzeiqer for 1907 says 

 that a twenty-fi\'e-foot regal 

 python in Carl Hagenbeck's 

 Zoological Park at Hamburg 

 swallowed a roebuck of sixty- 

 seven pounds. Another in 

 the same place is known to 

 have eaten an Indian anteloix' 

 of ninety pounds, and still 

 another an ibex of ninety- 

 seven pounds. 



That these facts are possi- 

 ble is due primarily of ccnu'se 

 to the elastic ligaments be- 

 tween the bones of the snake's 

 skull, especially those con- 

 nected with the jaws. As 

 the swallowing ])rocee(ls, tlie 

 right and left sides of the 

 jaws with their ciir\ed teeth 



reach forward alternately and in rapid succession to draw in the prey, the 

 scales beconu' widely separatcnl on the head, which excei)t for the i)resence 

 of the. eyes loses all semblance to a head, and tinall\- what seemed the 

 impossible has taken place and an ol>ject has been swallowed that was at 

 least four or five times the diameter of the snake's head. 



A vital c|uestion in the process conc(>rns tlu' breathing, when the internal 

 openings of the nostrils, nornuilly leading the air across the mouth to the 

 glottis, are firmly blocked by the i)ri"y — and this perhai)s for hours. The 

 adaptation to o\-ercome the dilliculty is (luite in keeping with the whole 



South 

 American l)oa 

 ( lion constric- 

 tor) at the be- 

 Kinning of the 

 process of 



swallowing a 

 black rabbit 



Tlie pr<)ces.s 

 all but com- 

 pleted 



