ERRONEOUS NOTIONS ABOUT SNAKES. 37 
occasionally ; and there are rare instances of non-venomous Snakes 
preying upon poisonous ones. The venomous kinds first kill their 
victim by poison ; others by smothering it between the coils of their 
body. As they do not possess organs for tearing their prey to 
pieces, nor a dentition fit for mastication, the prey is swallowed 
entire ; and in consequence of the great width of the mouth, and of 
the extraordinary extensibility of the skin of the gullet, they are 
able to swallow animals of which the girth much exceeds their own. 
The Sea Snakes prey mostly upon fishes, and the ordinary Water 
Snakes (Homolopside, &c.) on Frogs and other Batrachians. Certain 
swallowers of birds’ eggs have peculiar spinous processes proceeding 
from the vertebre of the neck, the object of which is to fracture the 
shell of an egg during the process of deglutition. 
Most of the Ophidian Reptiles are oviparous, but many are 
ovo-viviparous. ‘The Pythons alone (so far as ascertained) perform 
a sort of incubation, which has been repeatedly observed in captive 
specimens of these huge Serpents. 
Many Snakes are remarkable for their great beauty of colouring 
or for the pattern of their markings; but on account of the poisonous 
property so many possess, the whole order is popularly regarded 
with horror and apprehension, and the most foolish tales are current 
respecting various species of them. ‘Thus many people suppose 
that there are Snakes which rob cows of their milk; and the skeleton 
of a child being found in the same hollow with a number of harm- 
less Snakes (the North American Coryphodon constrictor), it was con- 
cluded, as a matter of course, that the serpents must have both 
killed the child and stripped off its flesh, a thing which no snake 
could possibly do. People are prone to exaggerate, and commonly 
evince a fondness for the marvellous, which induce those of hot coun- 
tries more especially, where the species of Ophidians are numerous, 
to declare every snake met with to be the most venomous one in 
their country; and thus travellers often come away with exceedingly 
erroneous impressions on the subject. The Indian region surpasses 
every other part of the globe in the number and variety of its Ophi- 
dians ; and almost every investigation of a limited but previously 
unexplored district, is tolerably sure to add largely to our previous 
knowledge of them. What, however, the late Sir J. Emerson 
Tennent asserts of those inhabiting Ceylon is equally applicable 
to other parts of the Indian region. ‘‘ During my residence in 
Ceylon,” he remarks, “I never heard of the death of a European 
which was caused by the bite of a snake; and in the returns of 
‘coroners’ inquests made officially to my department, such accidents 
