BLUE RIDGE BOA. 



573 



an hour after sunrise, ten or fifteen of them descend 

 from a great height, and settle on the top of a tall, 

 detached tree, appearing, from their silence and se- 

 dateness, to be strangers and fatigued. After a pause 

 of a few minutes, they began to dress and arrange 

 their plumage, and continued so employed for ten or 

 fifteen minutes more ; then, on a few warning notes 

 being given, perhaps by the leader of the party, the 

 whole remounted to a vast height, steering in a direct 

 line for the south-west." , 



BLUE RIDGE ; one of the ranges of the Alleghany, 

 or Appalachian mountains, which extends from the 

 river Hudson to Georgia, and intersects the state of 

 Virginia from N. E. to S. W., dividing it into two 

 parts, nearly equal. The great limestone valley ex- 

 tends along the N. W. side of this range. The most 

 elevated summits of the Blue Ridge are the peaks of 

 Otter, in Bedford county, Virginia. 



BLUE-STOCKING ; a pedantic female ; one who sa- 

 crifices the characteristic excellencies of her sex to 

 learning. The origin of this name, in England, is 

 thus given by Boswell, in his Life of Johnson : 

 " About this time (1780), it was much the fashion for 

 several ladies to have evening assemblies, where the 

 fair sex might participate in conversation with literary 

 and ingenious men, animated with a desire to please. 

 These societies were denominated blue-stocking clubs, 

 the origin of which name was as follows : One of 

 the most eminent members of these societies was Mr 

 Stillingfleet, who always wore blue stockings. Such 

 was the excellence of his conversation, that his ab- 

 sence was felt as a great loss, and it used to be said, 

 'We can do nothing without the blue stockings;' 

 and thus, by degrees, the title was established." 

 In Germany, blue-stocking (blau-strumpfe) signifies a 

 traitor, a slanderer, an infamous lover, &c., and the 

 term, in that country, is said to be derived from the 

 blue stockings formerly worn by procurers. 



BUTMAUER, Aloysius, a poet, and famous parodist, 

 born at Steyr, in Austria, above the Ens, in 1755, 

 studied in his native city, entered (1772) into the 

 order of the Jesuits in Vienna, lived there privately, 

 after the abolition of his order, till he was appointed 

 censor, which place he resigned in 1793, and took 

 the establishment of the bookseller Graeffer, in which 

 he had been concerned since 1786. He died in 1798. 

 By his ^Eneid travestied, he distinguished himself as 

 a burlesque poet. It is a poetical farce, rich in bur- 

 lesque, wit, and droll contrasts. These qualities are 

 also to be found in several others of his numerous 

 poems. Some of them are fiill of animation, and are 

 written in a pure, manly style. At times, his wit is 

 vulgar, his language incorrect and prosaic. A col- 

 lection of his works appeared at Leipsic, 1801 3, 

 eight vols. 



BOA ; the name of a genus of reptiles belonging to 

 Cuvier's tribe of serpents proper; having the tym- 

 panic bone or pedicle of the lower jaw movable, 

 which is itself almost always suspended to another 

 bone analogous to the mastoid, attached to the skull 

 by muscles and ligaments, which contribute to its 

 mobility. The branches of this jaw are not united, 

 and those of the upper jaw are attached to the inter- 

 maxillary bone only by ligaments, so that these ani- 

 mals can dilate the mouth sufficiently to swallow 

 bodies larger than themselves. Their palatic arches 

 partake of this mobility. In the species of this tribe 

 not possessed of venom, the branches of the upper 

 and lower jaw, throughout their entire length, as 

 well as the palate bones, are armed with pointed, 

 recurved, solid, and permanent teeth, forming four 

 nearly equal rows above, and two below. 



The genus boa comprises all those serpents which, 

 in addition to the preceding characters, have the 

 . cuta on the under part of the tail single ; a hook on 



each side of the vent ; the tail prehensile ; the body 

 compressed and largest in the middle, and with small 

 scales, at least on the posterior part of the head. 



The species properly belonging to this genus are 

 among the largest of the serpent tribe, some of them, 

 when full grown, being thirty, and even forty feet 

 long. Though destitute of fangs and venom, nature 

 has endowed them with a degree of muscular power 

 which renders them terrible. Happily, they are not 

 common in situations much frequented by mankind 

 but are chiefly found in the vast marshy regions of 

 Guiana, and other hot parts of the American conti- 

 nent. Although sufficiently active when fasting or 

 hungry, they become very sluggish and inert after 

 having gorged their prey, at which time they are 

 most easily destroyed. In order to obtain their food, 

 the boce of largest size attach themselves to the trunk 

 or branches of a tree, in a situation likely to be visited 

 by quadrupeds for the sake of pasture or water. 

 There the serpent swings about in the air, as if a 

 branch or pendent of the tree, until some luckless 

 animal approaches ; then, suddenly relinquishing its 

 position, swift as lightning he seizes the victim, and 

 coils his body spirally round its throat and chest, un- 

 til, after a few ineffectual cries and struggles, the 

 animal is suffocated, and expires. In producing this 

 effect, the serpent does not merely wreathe itself 

 around its prey, but places fold over fold, as if desir- 

 ous of adding as much weight as possible to the mus- 

 cular effort : these folds are then gradually tightened 

 with enormous force, and speedily induce death. The 

 animals thus destroyed by the larger boas are deer, 

 dogs, and even bullocks. The prey is then prepared 

 for being swallowed, which the creature accomplishes 

 by pushing the limbs into the most convenient posi- 

 tion, and then covering the surface with a glutinous 

 saliva. The reptile commences the act of deglutition 

 by taking the muzzle of the prey into its mouth, 

 which is capable of vast extension ; and, by a succes- 

 sion of wonderful muscular contractions, the rest of 

 the body is gradually drawn in, with a steady and 

 regular motion. As the mass advances in the gullet, 

 the parts through which it has passed resume their 

 former dimensions, though its immediate situation is 

 always betrayed by external protuberance. 



As already mentioned, the species of boa are pecu- 

 liar to the hot parts of South America, though nothing 

 is more common than the error of confounding the 

 great serpents of India, Africa, c., with the proper 

 boa. According to the researches of Cuvier, all the 

 boce, at present well determined, are natives of the 

 new continent. The great serpents of the old conti- 

 nent belong to the genus python (Daud.), and will be 

 treated of under that title. It is nevertheless true, 

 that Pliny has spoken of the huge serpents of India, 

 and afterwards of large serpents of Italy, which were 

 called boce, thus named from the circumstance of their 

 being at first fed with cow's milk. 



Amonj? the most celebrated species is the boa con- 

 strictor (L.), distinguished by a large chain, formed 

 alternately of large, blackish, irregular hexagonal 

 spots, with pale, oval spots, notched at their two ex- 

 tremities, along the back. This is the largest spe- 

 cies, and is usually confounded, by casual observers, 

 with the python Tigris of the old world. The B. 

 cenchris (L.), and the B. scytale, et musina (L.), at- 

 tain to nearly an equal size with the constrictor (from 

 twenty to thirty feet long), and are all natives of the 

 torrid and marshy regions of America. The other 

 species are of smaller size, and some do not much 

 exceed that of the largest common snakes. We can- 

 not reflect upon the natural history of these great 

 reptiles, without being struck with their peculiar 

 adaptation to the situations in which they are com- 

 monly most abundant. In regions bordering on great 



