Cuap. IIL. SNAKES. 51 
It frequently happened, in passing through the thickets, that a snake 
would fall from the boughs close to me. Once I got for a few moments 
completely entangled in the folds of one, a wonderfully slender kind, 
being nearly six feet in lenght, and not more than half an inch in 
diameter at its broadest part. It was a species of Dryophis. The 
majority of the snakes seen were innocuous. One day, however, I trod 
on the tail of a young serpent belonging to a very poisonous kind, 
the Jararaca (Craspedocephalus atrox). It turned round and bit my 
trousers ; and a young Indian lad, who was behind me, dexterously cut 
it through with his knife before it had time to free itself. In some 
seasons snakes are very abundant, and it often struck meas strange that 
accidents did not occur more frequently than was the case. 
Amongst the most curious snakes found here were the Amphisbene, 
a genus allied to the slow-worm of Europe. Several species occur at 

Amphisbeena, 
Para. Those brought to me were generally not more than a foot in 
length. They are of cylindrical shape, having, properly speaking, no 
neck ; and the blunt tail, which is only about an inch in length, is of the 
same shape as the head. This peculiar form, added to their habit of 
wriggling backwards as well as forwards, has given rise to the fable that 
they have two heads, one at each extremity. ‘They are extremely 
sluggish in their motions, and are clothed with scales that have the 
form of small imbedded plates arranged in rings round the body. The 
eye is so small as to be scarcely perceptible. They live habitually in 
the subterranean chambers of the Saiiba ant; only coming out of their 
abodes occasionally in the night-time. The natives call the Amphisbeena 
the “‘ Mai das Saiibas,” or Mother of the Saiibas, and believe it to be 
poisonous, although it is perfectly harmless. It is one of the many 
curious animals which have become the subject of mythical stories with 
the natives. They say the ants treat it with great affection, and that if 
the snake be taken away from a nest, the Saubas will forsake the spot. 
I once took one quite whole out of the body of a young Jararaca, the 
poisonous species already alluded to, whose body was so distended with 
its contents that the skin was stretched out to a film over the contained 
Amphisbena. I was, unfortunately, not able to ascertain the exact 
relation which subsists between these curious snakes and the Saiiba ants. 
I believe, however, they feed upon the Saiibas, for I once found 
the remains of ants in the stomach of one of them. Their motions are 
quite peculiar ; the undilatable jaws, small eyes and curious plated 
integument also distinguish them from other snakes. These properties 
have evidently some relation to their residence in the subterranean 
abodes of ants. It is now well ascertained by naturalists, that some of 
