446 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1911. . 



beyond the coils which enfolded the body and about which they were entwined. 

 The last turns formed a kind of block upon which rested and was thrown back the 

 stretched neck like the cord on a capstan. 



The whole body of the wicked serpent had disappeared within the folds of the good 

 serpent; its extremities alone remained visible, the helpless head on one s'de, the 

 slowly moving tail at the other. 



"He is going to dislocate the cervical vertebrae," Dr. Brazil whispered to me, "you 

 will see; it is very curious." Indeed it was very curious and even rather horrible 

 to see. But we were as if fascinated by this spectacle, the contest between the good 

 and the bad reptile, between Ormuzd and Ahriman. 



During several minutes, which seemed to me interminable, Ormuzd had stretched 

 the neck of his half-dead adversary, using some of hi3 own entwining coils as a ful- 

 crum, and ingen'ously employing the principle of the lever. Then he commenced 

 to twist slowly from right to left, from left to right, the stretched, taut neck. 



Was Ahriman dead when I left this spectacle to see the rest of the institution? I 

 would not venture to say that he was entirely dead when Ormuzd, after our departure, 

 commenced to swallow him. An hour later, when we returned, the deed was almost 

 done. The good Mussurana was stretched at full length upon the ground where we 

 had left them rolled up as in a ball. We could distinctly see by the abrupt swelling 

 of the steely armor the point to which the swallowing of the prey had progressed. 

 The latter had disappeared, swallowed up close to the tail; and a detail which struck 

 me and which moved me despite my knowledge of the unconsciousness of reflex 

 movements, that little tail was coiled about one of the legs of a table and clung to it 

 yet with convulsive tremblings. 



