374 NATURAL HISTORY. 



be twenty feet long. In the same way fiction plays a part in their swal- 

 lowing capacities. Many of our popular books depict these animals as 

 killing huge deer and buffalo by enveloping them in their tightening coils. 

 Cold, sober fact dispels this also; for these animals but rarely kill anything 

 larger than a dog, and even should they kill it, their mouth cannot be 

 stretched wide enough to take it in. Still, they can swallow objects of 

 considerable size, for the peculiar structure of their jaws allows them to 

 open far wider than one would believe possible. In man the lower jaw 

 articulates directly with the skull, but in the pythons, as in all reptiles, 

 there are two additional bones between the two, and the effect of this is to 

 still farther widen the gape. 



In the N<\\ World occur the boas, and the name boa-constrictor is famil- 

 iar to all. There are several species of boas inhabiting tropical America, 

 but the ordinary traveler is oblivious of the differences between them, and 

 they all appear in his note-books as boa-constrictors. In our menageries 

 any large snake, no matter whether it comes from Africa or America, 

 bears this name. The boas are very large snakes, some of them being ten 

 or fifteen feet in length. They live in the dense forests, where they live 

 on the animals that come in their way. They rarely, if ever, attack man, 

 but, on the contrary, are afraid of him. Mr. Bates, for instance, relates 

 his experience with one of them. It was coming towards him, but on see- 

 ing him it turned and tried to escape. Our naturalist wished to know 

 more about the specimen — to notice its markings and to ascertain its 

 length, and so began to chase it ; but the faster he ran, the faster went 

 the snake, and the result was that it got away from the pursuer. 



The anaconda is also a native of the same regions as the boas, but it 

 far exceeds them in size. It is also more bold, and is more or less aquatic 

 in its habits. Mr. Bates must again be called upon to furnish a few facts 

 regarding this species. One night as his boat lay at anchor on the upper 

 Amazon, he was startled by a considerable jar, and in the morning found 

 that his hen-coops which hung over the edge of the water had been broken 

 into from below^ and two of his chickens were missing. The natives said 

 th.it an anaconda which had been lurking about for some time must have 

 done it ; but Mr. Bates hardly believed this. In a few days, however, the 

 natives instituted a systematic search for the monster who had made serious 

 inroads on their live-stock. With their boats they explored everyplace 

 capable of concealing it. and at last their search was rewarded with suc- 

 cess. They quickly killed the snake, which measured eighteen feet nine 

 inches in length, and sixteen inches around the largest part of the body. 

 Mr. Bates at a later date measured one twenty-one feet long and two feet 

 in girth, and heard of monsters said to be forty-two feet long. 



