348 NATURAL HISTORY IN ANECDOTE. 



A Terrible ^ ot many years ago, says a writer in " Chums," 

 Boa. a boa escaped from a menagerie at Grenoble, and 

 disappeared without leaving a trace. A few days afterwards a 

 certain Monsieur Flisson went on a visit to Beauregard along 

 with a friend, who accompanied him on an excursion among 

 the romantic hills and rocks in that part of the country. At a 

 particularly interesting spot he tarried behind his friend, and, 

 in order to enjoy the glorious prospect, sat down on what ap- 

 peared to be a stone covered with soft moss. It was eight 

 o'clock in the evening, and M. Flisson, though shortsighted, 

 was a man of prodigious strength. This was lucky for him, 

 for the stone now began to move under him, stretched itself 

 out with the elasticity of a spring, and lifted him several feet 

 from the ground. M. Flisson had sat down on the boa. Be- 

 fore he had time to recover his presence of mind, he felt him- 

 self rolling downwards. The serpent had curled his tail round 

 a tree-trunk, and Flisson held its head firmly grasped between 

 his hands. A strange and terrible struggle ensued. The boa, 

 securely fastened to the tree, pulled upwards, and Flisson, 

 still clinging with herculean strength to the head of the crea- 

 ture, found himself at last swinging over a precipice of about 

 seventy feet in depth, as though suspended by a rope. In 

 this terrible situation he remained ten minutes, until his friend, 

 with the assistance of a few countrymen, came to his relief. 

 A Narrow Mr. Byam's book contains many interesting 



Escape. anecdotes of the experiences of travellers of which 

 the following snake story is one. 



" Two travellers passed a hillock in a marsh, and heard some 

 groans proceeding from a man on the top of it. Earnestly 

 beckoned to approach, they at first hesitated, thinking it might 

 be a contrivance to entice them into danger. They, however, 

 went near, and the man told them that, while asleep, a snake 

 had crept up his loose drawers, and was then lying on his 

 stomach, and from what he had seen of it, he believed it to be 

 a Coral-snake, one of the deadliest of the western serpents. 



