537 



BOID^E. 



BOID^E. 



53S 



Fig. 1 



is concealed under the skin. This second bone of the rudiment of a 

 foot in the Bot has an external thick condyle, with which the ungual 

 phalanx is articulated, as above stated ; it presents, besides a smaller 

 internal apophysis, which places it in connection with the other bones 

 of the skeleton. These bones are the appendages of a tibia, or leg- 

 bone, the form and relative position of which wUl be understood by a 

 reference to the subjoined cuts, copied from Dr. Mayer's ' Memoir.' 

 (' Trans. Soc. Nat. Curios.,' translated in ' Annales des Sciences ' for 

 1826.) 



The previous figure represents the tail of a Son Constrictor; 

 a, the vent ; b, the hook or spur of the left side ; c, the subcutaneous 

 muscle ; d, ribs and intercostal muscles ; e, transverse muscle of the 

 abdomen ; /, bone of the leg enveloped in its muscles ; g, abductor 

 muscle of the foot ; h, adductor muscle of the foot. The arrange- 

 ment of the scuta, or shields, of one entire piece under the tail, 

 characteristic of the true Boas, will be here observed. In the Pythons 

 the shields brneath the tail are ranged in pairs. 



We here have a representation of the osteology of this rudimen- 

 tary limb, taken from the same author. Fvj. 1 represents the left 

 posterior limb of the Boa 

 ScytaU, seen anteriorly : 

 a, tibia, or leg-bone ; b, f 

 external bone of the 

 tarsus; c, internal bone 

 of the tarsus ; d, bone 

 of the metatarsus with 

 its apopbysis; e, nail or 

 hook. 



Fiij. 2 represents the 

 same limb, seen pos- 

 teriorly. 



Doctors Hopkinson c 

 and Pancoast have given 

 in the ' Transactions of 

 the American Philoso- 

 phical Society,' held at 

 Philadelphia, for promoting useful knowledge (vol. v. new series, 

 part i.), an interesting account of the visceral anatomy of the Python 

 (Cuvier), described by Daudin as the Boa reticulata. And here it may 

 be as well to remark that the differences between the Boas and the 

 Pythons are so small, that the accounts given of the constricting 

 powers and even of the principal anatomical details of the one, may 

 be taken as illustrative of the same points in the history of the other. 



Perhaps the best way of illustrating the habits of these creatures 

 in seizing and killing then- prey is to relate some of the incidents 

 with which books of travels abound. 



Mr. M'Leod, in his ' Voyage of H.M.S. Alceste,' gives the following 

 painfully vivid account of a serpent, a native of Borneo, 16 feet long, 

 and of about 18 inches in circumference, which was on board. There 

 were originally two ; but one, to use Mr. M'Leod's expression, 

 " sprawled overboard and was drowned." 



" During his stay at Ryswick," says Mr. M'Leod, speaking of the 

 survivor, " he is said to have been usually entertained with a goat for 

 dinner, once in every three or four weeks, with occasionally a duck or 

 a fowl by way of a dessert. The live-stock for his use during the 

 passage, consisting of six goats'of the ordinary size, were sent with him 

 on board, five being considered as a fair allowance for as many month*. 



" At an early period of the voyage we had an exhibition of his 

 talent in the way of eating, which was publicly performed on the 

 quarter-deck, upon which his crib stood. The sliding part being 

 opened, one of the goats was thrust in, and the door of the cage was 

 shut. The poor goat, as if instantly aware of all the horrors of its 

 perilous situation, immediately began to utter the most piercing and 

 distressing cries, butting instinctively at the same time, with its head 

 towards the serpent, in self-defence. 



" The snake, which at first appeared scarcely to notice the poor 

 animal, soon began to stir a little, and turning his head in the direction 

 of the goat, he at length fixed a deadly and malignant eye on the 

 trembling victim, whose agony and terror seemed to increase ; for 

 previous to the snake seizing his prey, it shook in every limb, but still 

 continuing its unavailing show of attack, by butting at the serpent, 

 which now became sufficiently animated to prepare for the banquet. 

 The first operation was that of darting out his forked tongue, and at 

 the same time rearing a little his head ; then suddenly seizing the 

 goat by the fore-leg with his fangs, and throwing it down, it was 

 encircled in an instant in his horrid folds. So quick indeed and so 

 instantaneous was the act, that it was impossible for the eye to follow 

 the rapid convolution of his elongated body. It was not a regular 

 screw-like turn that was formed, but resembling rather a knot, one 

 part of the body overlaying the other, as if to add weight to the 

 muscular pressure, the more effectually to crush the object. During 

 this time he continued to grasp with his fangs, though it appeared an 

 unnecessary precaution, that part of the animal which he had first 

 seized. He then slowly and cautiously unfolded himself, till the goat 

 fell dead from his monstrous embrace, when he began to prepare 

 himself for swallowing it. Placing his mouth in front of the dead 

 animal, he commenced by lubricating with his saliva that part of the 

 goat, and then taking its muzzle into his mouth, which had, and 



indeed always has, the appearance of a raw lacerated wound, he sucked 

 it in, as far as the horns would allow. These protuberances opposed 

 some little difficulty, not so much from their extent as from their 

 points ; however they also in a very short time disappeared, that is to 

 say, externally ; but their progress was still to be traced very distinctly 

 on the outside, threatening every moment to protrude through the 

 skin. The victim had now descended as far as the shoulders ; and it 

 was an astonishing sight to observe the extraordinary action of the 

 snake's muscles when stretched to such an unnatural extent an 

 extent which must have utterly destroyed all muscular power in any 

 animal that was not like himself endowed with very peculiar facilities 

 of expansion and action at the same time. When his head and neck 

 had no other appearance than that of a serpent's skin stuffed almost 

 to bursting, still the workings of the muscles were evident ; and his 

 power of suction, as it is erroneously called, unabated ; it was in fact 

 the effect of a contractile muscular power, assisted by two rows of 

 strong hooked teeth. With all this he must be so formed as to be 

 able to suspend for a time his respiration ; for it is impossible to 

 conceive that the process of breathing could be carried on while the 

 mouth and throat were so completely stuffed and expanded by the 

 body of the goat, and the lungs themselves (admitting the trachea to 

 be ever so hard) compressed as they must have been by its passage 

 downwards. 



" The whole operation of completely gorging the goat occupied 

 about two hours and twenty minutes, at the end of which time the 

 tumefaction was confined to the middle part of the body, or stomach, 

 the superior parts, which had been so much distended, having 

 resumed their natural dimensions. He now coiled himself up again, 

 and lay quietly in his usual torpid state for about three weeks or a 

 month, when his last meal appearing to be completely digested and 

 dissolved, he was presented with another goat, which he killed and 

 devoured with equal facility. It would appear that almost all he 

 swallows is converted into nutrition, for a small quantity of calcareous 

 matter (and that perhaps not a tenth part of the bones of the animal), 

 with occasionally some of the hairs, seemed to compose his general 

 faces. .... 



" It was remarked, especially by the officers of the watch, who had 

 better opportunities of noticing this circumstance, that the goats had 

 always a great horror of the serpent, and evidently avoided that side 

 of the deck on which his cage stood." (P. 305.) 



Mr. Broderip, in the second volume of the ' Zoological Journal,' 

 after referring to Mr. M'Leod's interesting narrative, of the correctness 

 of which, as far as it goes, he says he has not a single doubt, and 

 observing that two points in that description struck him forcibly, the 

 one as being contrary to the probable structure of the animal, and the 

 other as being contrary to Mr. Broderip's observations, proceeds to 

 give the following account of the manner in which the serpent takes 

 its prey in this country. 



Mr. Broderip had an opportunity of seeing one of these creatures 

 when kept in the Tower. The keeper says Mr. Broderip " sent to 

 inform me that one of these reptiles had just cast his skin, at which 

 period they, in common with other serpents, are most active and eager 

 for prey. Accordingly I repaired with some friends to the Tower, 

 where we found a spacious cage, the floor of which consisted of a tin 

 case covered with red baize and filled with warm water, so as to pro- 

 duce a proper temperature. There was the snake, ' positis novus 

 exuviis,' gracefully examining the height and extent of his prison as 

 he raised, without any apparent effort, his towering head to the roof 

 and upper parts of it, full of life, and brandishing his tongue. 



" A large buck rabbit was introduced into the cage. The snake was 

 down and motionless in a moment. There he lay like a log without 

 one symptom of life, save that which glared in the small bright eye 

 twinkling in his depressed head. The rabbit appeared to take no 

 notice of him, but presently began to walk about the cage. The 

 snake suddenly, but almost imperceptibly, turned his head according 

 to the rabbit's movements, as if to keep the object within the range of 

 his eye. At length the rabbit, totally unconscious of his situation, 

 approached the ambushed head. The snake dashed at him like 

 lightning. There was a blow a scream and instantly the. victim 

 was locked in the coils of the serpent. This was done almost too 

 rapidly for the eye to follow : at one instant the snake was motion- 

 less ; in the next he was one congeries of coils round his prey. He 

 had seized the rabbit by the neck just under the ear, and was evidently 

 exerting the strongest pressure round the thorax of the quadruped ; 

 thereby preventing the expansion of the chest, and at the same time 

 depriving the anterior extremities of motion. The rabbit never cried 

 after the first seizure ; he lay with his hind legs stretched out, still 

 breathing with difficulty, as could be seen by the motion of his flanks. 

 Presently he made one desperate struggle with his hind legs ; but the 

 snake cautiously applied another coil with such dexterity as com- 

 pletely to manacle the lower extremities, and, in about eight minutes, 

 the rabbit was quite dead. The snake then gradually and carefully 

 uncoiled himself, and, finding that his victim moved not, opened his 

 mouth, let go his hold, and placed his head opposite to the fore part 

 of the rabbit. The boa generally, I have observed, begins with the 

 head ; but in this instance the serpent, having begun with the fore 

 legs, was longer in gorging his prey than usual, and in consequence of 

 the difficulty presented by the awkward position of the rabbit, the 



