THE LOCOMOTION OF SEKPENTS. 



305 



devour a common Coluber Natrix, but not having taken the 

 measure of Iiis victim, he could not dispose of the last four 

 inches of his tail, which stuck out rather jauntily from the side 

 of his mouth, with very much the look of a cigar. After a 

 quarter of an hour the tail began to exhibit a retrograde 

 motion, and the swallowed snake was disgorged, nothing the 

 worse for his living sepulchre, with the exception of the wound 

 made by his partner when first he seized him. 



A python in the same collection, who had lived for years on 

 friendly terms with a brother nearly as large as himself, was 

 found one morning sole tenant of his den. As the cage was 



jcure, the keeper was puzzled to know how the serpent had 

 jscaped. At last it was observed that the remaining inmate 

 lad swollen remarkably during the night, when the truth 

 ime out. 



When we consider that the snakes have neither legs, wings, 

 lor fins, and are indeed deprived of all the usual means of 

 locomotion, the rapidity of their progress is not a little sur- 

 prising. On examining the anatomical structure of their body, 

 however, it will be remarked that while we have only twelve 

 pairs of ribs united in front by the breast-bone and cartilage, 

 the snake has often more than three hundred, unconnected in 

 front, and consequently much more free in their motions, a 



