58 



selves one of them felt herself seized from behind. Fancying 

 that one of her sisters was playing tricks, she called out to her 

 to let her alone, and looking up saw, to her astonishment, her 

 three sisters sitting on the bank and herself alone. She looked 

 back and shrieked for help, but only just in time, for the Iluillia 

 had her. The other three girls to their honour, dashed into her 

 assistance. The brute had luckily caught hold, not of her poor 

 little body, but of her bathing dress and held on stupidly. The 

 girls pulled — the bathing dress, which was luckily of thin cot- 

 ton, was torn off, the Huillia slid back again with it in his 

 mouth into the dark labyrinth of the mangrove roots and the 

 girl was saved, ^^vo minutes delay and his coils would have 

 been round her and all would have been over. The sudden 

 daring of these lazy, stupid animals is very great. Their brain 

 seems to act like that of the alligator or the pike, paroxysmally, 

 and by rare fits and starts, after lying for hours motionless and 

 as if asleep. But when excited they will attempt great deeds. 

 Dr. de Verteuil tells a story, and if he tells it it must be believed, 

 of some hunters who wounded a deer. The deer ran for a 

 stream down a bank but the hunters had no sooner heard it 

 splash into the water than they heard it scream. They leaped 

 down to the place and found it in the coils of a Iluillia which 

 they killed with the deer, and yet this snake Avhich had dared 

 to seize a full grown deer could have no hope of eating her for 

 it was only seven feet long." 



With regard to the specimen before the meeting, it lives 

 all day long, and all night too, it might be said, in a tub of 

 water with only its nose and eyes above the surface. You will 

 notice the prominent position of the small eyes and also that 

 the nostrils are placed on the tip of the nose, unlike the position 

 which those organs occupy in most snakes. Vie believe 

 this snake is a female as it has passed some whitey, stringy sub- 

 stance, which is probably the remains of undeveloped oviaries 

 which were injured in the reptile's capture. It has been tried 

 with fowls and pigeons, but hitherto has refused to eat anything. 

 Its length is about 7 feet 4 inches. 

 4th March, 1892. E. R. MOLE. 



FIFTEEN H7NDRED DOLLARS FOR A BUTTERFLY. 



A young man camping in the Sierras discovered and captnred a bntter- 

 flv of an unknown species. He sent it to the Smithsonian Institution at 

 Washington, and received therefor a check for fifteen hundred dollars, with 

 the request to make careful search for others of the same kinJ. It was an 

 individual of a fossil species, supposed to be extinct, and great was thfi ex- 

 eitement among the scientists at the discovery that one of the race had bean 

 recently alive. Although diligent search has been made by men paid for the 

 ■ervice, no other specimen has been found. 



