COLUBER. 



situations where they abound, and are not destroyed 

 in consequence of the superstitious prejudice there is 

 against them, they are useful in clearing the vicinities 

 of houses of many troublesome creatures. They are 

 also generally expert in climbing trees, and almost all 

 of them are excellent swimmers. They are not abso- 

 lutely aquatic, but they prefer moist situations ; and 

 the very large ones are seldom found at a great dis- 

 tance from the water. 



There are some idle stories believed by the coun- 

 try people of those places where serpents of this genus 

 are common, such as that they suck the milk of cows, 

 whose mammae they reach by twiningup theirhindlegs, 

 and that by holding on with their teeth while they suck, 

 they occasion disagreeable wounds. Jt does not, how- 

 ever, appear that there is any truth in these stories, any 

 more than there is in the other allegations, that they 

 are apt to creep into the mouths of persons who sleep 

 in the open air near their haunts, and if they do not 

 choke them by sticking in the throat, prove very 

 disagreeable inmates of the stomach. This prejudice 

 is a very old one, and we find it continued to the pre- 

 sent day; and it has not always been confined to the 

 mere vulgar, but was eagerly laid hold of by empirical 

 practitioners in pretended medicine, during those 

 periods of the history of that most extraordinary art, 

 when it was not deemed necessary that the doings of 

 the doctor should have any connexion whatever with 

 physiology or with common sense, but that he had 

 the better chance of success the more he was opposed 

 to both. 



That these animals are fond of creeping into holes 

 is certainly true ; but the mouth of a warm-blooded 

 living animal is not the most likely lodging-place for 

 them ; first, because the temperature would be too 

 high for them ; and, secondly, because the gullet of 

 an animal is the gate of death to everything which 

 enters ; and if it were possible to imagine that a savage 

 could once get a tiger or a boa constrictor fairly down 

 his throat, indigestion apart, he would feel no more 

 trouble from it than from any dead substance. There 

 neither is nor can be any living creature in the sto- 

 mach of an animal, but such as can naturally breed 

 there ; and of parasitical animals (Entozoa) which are 

 found in the alimentary vessels of other animals, the 

 majority, if not the whole are found in the intestinal 

 canal farther down than the true digestive stomach. 



In temperate countries none of the colubers attain 

 a very large size ; but they are often very beautiful 

 in their colours, and very lively and graceful in their 

 motions. The sound of all their voices is a sort of 

 hiss, sometimes very sharp, but varying considerably 

 in tone in the different species. When the weather 

 begins to get cold, they retire to their holes, where 

 they remain dormant till the spring ; and they are not 

 much seen abroad even in the warmer months. In the 

 warmer part of the season, indeed, they seem to re- 

 quire a good deal of exposure to the sun before they 

 recover from their torpor ; for then they are abroad 

 and active in proportion as the weather is hot and 

 sunny ; but it should seem that, beyond a certain de- 

 gree, the heat of the sun is not so favourable to them. 

 This must, however, in no small degree, depend upon 

 the nature of the climate, and the consequent adapta- 

 tion of the species. 



The number of species, and even of sub-genera, 

 into which these reptiles have been divided, are so 

 many, and have been so differently arranged by dif- 

 ferent authors, that the details of them would 'convey 



no popular information. The simplest view that can 

 be given of them is a division into four sub-genera : 

 Python, Hurria,JDipsas and Coluber, properly so called, 

 and it is the last of the sub-genera of which the species 

 are so numerous, and many of which are natives of 

 temperate climates. 



PYTHON. This sub-genus very closely resembles 

 the boa, except that the plates on the under-side of the 

 tail are double, whereas those in the true boas are 

 single. The largest species of this genus is the great 

 coluber of the Sunda Isles (Coluber Javanicm], which 

 is called " Ular sawa, or the water serpent," by the 

 Malays. It does not appear, however, to be exclu- 

 sively an inhabitant of the waters, though it is gener- 

 ally found near the rivers, or in marshy or humid 

 places. It is a large species, sometimes attaining the 

 length of thirty feet ; it kills its prey by crushing, and 

 is the boa constrictor of the eastern world. There are 

 one or two other species of this sub-genus, named by 

 systematic writers, and both described as being much 

 smaller than this one ; but it does not appear that, 

 unless in so far as size and strength are concerned, 

 they differ much in their manners ; and, from the long 

 life, slow growth, and annual change of skin, and many 

 other circumstances, together with our general igno- 

 rance of the habits of the more powerful serpents, it 

 is no very easy matter to say what is a species, and 

 what is not. 



HUKRIA. This sub-genus is altogether doubtful, 

 being probably founded upon an imperfectly formed 

 species of the other; and its specific distinction, which 

 is that of having the scales at the root of the tail 

 single as in the boas, but those toward the point 

 double as in the colubers, is not of much importance. 



DIPSAS. This name, which is given to an Indian 

 serpent, which is black marked with white rings, is 

 not a very happy one, in as much as dipsas was the 

 Greek name for a fabulous serpent (or one that we 

 may presume to have been fabulous), the bite of which 

 occasioned death by thirst in the person bitten. This 

 species, which is quite harmless, has been confounded 

 with a species of viper of the same country, which is 

 poisonous. The body of this serpent is compressed, 

 not so thick as the head ; and the scales along the 

 back are larger than those on the sides, and form a 

 sort of elevated crest. 



COLUBER. Of this sub-genus there are about 147 

 species mentioned by the systematic writers on Ophio- 

 logy (or the natural history of serpents considered as 

 a class), and many more are named and probably exist, 

 at the same time it is not impossible that two or three 

 names may, owing to accidental differences of appear- 

 ance, have been given to the same species. The his- 

 tory of so many species, none of which differ very 

 murff in their manners, could hardly be treated in a 

 popular manner, even if the particulars were all well 

 known. But that is far from being the case ; so that 

 we must content ourselves with brief notices of a few, 

 both of the European species and of those which are 

 met with in other parts of the world. 



Common Snake (Coluber natrix, Natrix torquata), 

 this is the most generally distributed, and on that ac- 

 count the best known, of all the European species. 

 It is also the only one, or at least the principal one, 

 which is found in Britain, not unfrequently in England, 

 but much more rarely in Scotland. It grows to the 

 length of three or four feet : its back is of a dusky- 

 brown colour, with two stripes formed of a succession 

 of black spots, running the whole of its length ; and 



