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which it has not the power of killing until after it has swallowed it, 
whose bite, so fatal to the human species and all other animals (in 
some cases killing even horses), has no effect upon the Clibro; for I 
have myself seen distinctly on more than one occasion, in their com- 
bats, the fang of the Rat-tail enter into the body or head of the Clibro, 
and bring blood from the spot, while the Clibro has taken no more 
notice of it than to get the head of the Rat-tail into his mouth as 
quickly as possible and begin to swallow him. I have satisfactorily 
proved that the Clibro does not kill his prey before he has swallowed 
it, by allowing a Clibro to swallow a Couresse, all excepting the very 
point of his tail, then pulling him out, after a short interval giving it 
to him again, pulling out the Couresse by the tip of his tail as before, 
and keeping him alive for months afterwards. 
The common belief is that the Clibro, when bitten by the Rat-tail, 
rubs himself in a grass which is commonly found in uncultivated land ; 
but this I have at all events shown to be an unnecessary proceeding 
on the part of the Clibro. 
It may not be uninteresting to describe here a fight which I wit- 
nessed some months since between a large Clibro and Rat-tail, the 
latter being nearly half as thick again as the former, but not so long ; 
they were each however upwards of four feet in length. 
Upon being placed together in a barrel, the Clibro immediately 
seized the Rat-tail by the middle, and twisted three times round him, 
in doing which the Rat-tail bit him in the back, and drew blood ; they 
both then remained perfectly quiet for a few seconds, when the Clibro 
moved his head slowly up behind his own body, and looking over it, 
advanced under its cover, to the point which lay nearest to the head 
of the Rat-tail, which was between four and five inches distant ; wait- 
ing about a couple of seconds in this position—the Rat-tail never 
having moved all this time—the Clibro made a dart, and with almost 
incredible rapidity seized the head of the Rat-tail in his mouth, and 
began to swallow him, which he accomplished in rather more than 
three hours. 
But the Clibro does not confine itself to snakes of other species, 
for on one occasion I lost a large Clibro by its being eaten by another. 
The two had lived for weeks together in the same drawer, and there 
was no great difference between them in size: having offered them 
food a few days previously, they refused it, and on my next visit I 
found only one in the drawer. Not being able to discover the means 
of egress of the missing Clibro, I then began to remark that the one 
in the drawer was thicker than usual, and after taking him out and 
disturbing him a little, he vomited up his late friend in a half-digested 
state, but enough of him was left to enable me to recognise his scales. 
4. Boa pivintLoqua, Dum. et Bibr. The Boa. 
The St. Lucian Boa, which is called by the natives “‘ Téte Chien,” 
from the resemblance of its head to that of a greyhound, is found in 
great numbers in cane-pieces, where it is highly valued as a means 
of destroying rats, but so feared that few natives can be induced to 
touch or even approach very near to it. 
