CHAP. VI. THE GIGANTIC BOA SERPENTS. 1Q5 



arisen the discrepancies which appear in the accounts 

 of those, who, under the belief that they are speaking of 

 the same species, are, really, narrating the habits of 

 another totally different. The crocodiles, fortunately, 

 are the only race of lizards from which mortal danger 

 is to be expected. 



(209.) We now proceed to the SERPENTS. Here a 

 formidable list presents itself ; for, whether we look to 

 such as, like the crocodiles, are actual devourers of 

 mankind, or distil into his veins their deadly venom 

 through malice or in self-defence, we find a much larger 

 number of mortal enemies in this tribe than in any 

 other. If we regard size, and the certainty of be- 

 coming food to these horrid reptiles when once they 

 have seized us, we should place the gigantic boas and 

 pithons of the two hemispheres at the head of this list. 

 In the early stages of European population in tropical 

 countries, there can be no doubt that these enormous 

 serpents were much more numerous, and attained, 

 from age, to a much larger size, than they are usually 

 found at present. The extension of man over the face 

 of the earth is always accompanied by a proportionate 

 diminution in the number of its wild and ferocious 

 animals : hence, in the vicinity of towns and villages 

 in the maritime parts of Tropical America, the traveller 

 has little to fear from the gigantic boa, because, although 

 they occasionally linger in such districts, they are gene- 

 rally met with and killed long before they have reached 

 their full growth. In proof of this, we, ourselves, 

 while botanising among the marshes close to the town 

 of Pernambuco, encountered a boa near seven feet long, 

 coiled up among the grass and rank herbage of the 

 banks : it was killed by a discharge of the gun ; and on 

 dragging it home and showing it to the Indians, they 

 assured us it was only a young one, which, in a few 

 years, would have reached a length of twenty or even 

 thirty feet. Boas of that size are well known to the 

 Indians of the interior ; and such destruction do these 

 gigantic reptiles cause to the herds of cattle, that the 

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