224 AN INCUBATING PYTHON*. 



huge Pythons or Boas, which overcome their prey by mere 

 mechanical pressure, first seizing the victim with wide-spread 

 jaws, and then, witli the rapidity of thought, throwing the folds 

 of their vast bodies round and round it, crushing rib and limb 

 within their terrible embrace, and relaxing the coil only when 

 life is extinct. 



One of these monsters is just now while we write attracting 

 great attention from the novel spectacle it affords of an enormous 

 serpent engaged in the interesting business of incubation. The 

 animal in question is a splendid Eock Snake of India (Python 

 molurus), twenty-two feet in length, and weighing nearly a 

 hundred and thirty pounds. On the night of Sunday, the 12th 

 January, she produced a string of leathery eggs, about the size 

 of those of a goose, numbering in all upwards of a hundred. The 

 Pythons are distinguished from all other reptiles by gathering 

 their eggs into a group and covering them with their bodies, 

 which is precisely what the lady Pythoness here in the Reptile 

 House has done. She has wound herself up in a magnificent coil 

 over her eggs, and there she has lain almost motionless and 

 without food from the night of their extrusion. It is to be hoped 

 that her maternal solicitude will in due time be rewarded by the 

 appearance of a brood of young Pythons ; though as some of her 

 eggs are known to be already putrid, it is much to be feared that 

 her trouble will be all in vain, and her hopes of a family disap- 

 pointed. 



The back of the Reptile House is generally occupied in part 

 by some of the rarer and more valuable animals for which appro- 

 priate accommodation is not to be had elsewhere. Here, for ex- 

 ample, lived the baby Chimpanzees, and the famous Ant -Eater ; 

 and here, at the present time, are specimens of the Lepidosiren, 

 already alluded to, of those huge Bats, the Flying Foxes, and 

 the Sicboldia, the Gigantic Newt of Japan (Sieboldia maxima), 

 which properly should now be playing the part of first " lion," 

 only that it has an unmistakable repugnance to the profession, 

 and persistently hides itself away in a corner of its case. 



With all its faults, however, as a professional character, the 

 Sieboldia is a most interesting fellow, and deserves far more at- 

 tention from the public than he is likely to get. It is the largest 

 of all existing Batrachians, and measures upwards of three feet in 

 length. A native of the mountain-lakes of Japa-n, this is the 



