58 REPTILES AND BIRDS. 



and strength. " It attacks," he says, " those it meets, and over- 

 powers them with such force, that if it once coils itself round their 



necks, it strangles and kills them, unless it bursts itseli by the 

 violence of its own efforts." The same author states that he has 

 seen serpents as thick as a man's thigh, which had been taken when 

 young by Indians, and tamed. That this Boa attains an immense 



