52 REPTILES AND BIRDS. 
stomach, that they swallow entire boars.” He adds that he knew 
persons who had partaken of a hog cut out of the stomach of a 
serpent of this kind. ‘They are not poisonous,” he adds, “ but 
they strangle by powerfully applying their folds round the body of 
their prey.” Mr. M‘Leod, in his interesting “‘ Voyage of the Aleste,” 
states that during a captivity of some months at Whidah, on the coast 
of Africa, he had opportunities of observing serpents double this 
length, one of which engaged a negro servant of the Governor 
of Fort William in its coil, and very nearly succeeded in crushing 
him to death. There can be no doubt that the length is here much 
exaggerated. About thirty feet is the utmost length attained by the » 
most gigantic serpents of which we possess accurate knowledge. 
The body of the Python is large and round. ‘They live on trees 
in warm damp places, on the banks of streams or watercourses, and 
attack the animals which, to slake their thirst, have the mishap to 
pass near them. Attached by their tail to the limb of a tree, they 
remain immovable in their ambush until their opportunity comes, 
when they dart upon their prey with amazing rapidity, wrap their 
bodies round it, and crush it in their powerful folds. Animals as 
large as gazelles, and even larger, thus become their victims. Their 
jaws are extremely distensible, for, having neither breast-bone nor 
false sides, they can easily increase the diameter of the opening to 
an almost incredible extent. 
The Ophidians (as we have seen) surpass all other Reptiles in the 
number of their vertebrae, with incomplete hemal arches; these 
constitute the skeleton of the long, slender, limbless trunk. All 
these vertebrz coalesce with one another, and are articulated together 
by ball-and-socket joints. Besides this articulation to the centrum, 
the vertebre of Ophidians articulate with each other by means of 
joints which interlock by parts reciprocally receiving and entering 
one another, like the tenon-and-mortise joint in carpentry. “The 
vertebral ribs have an oblong articular surface, concave above and 
almost flat below, in the Python. They have a large medullary cavity, 
with dense but thin walls, with a fine cancellated structure at their 
articular ends. Their lower end supports a short cartilaginous mem- 
brane, closing the hzemal arch, which is attached to the broad and 
stiff abdominal scute. These scutes, alternately raised and depressed 
by muscles attached to the ribs and integuments, aid in the gliding 
movement of serpents.” 
The peculiar motion of snakes was first noted by Sir Joseph Banks, 
and commented on by Sir Everard Home. Sir Joseph was observing 
a Coluber of unusual size, and thought he saw its ribs come forward 
