SNAKES 79 



pile of tight coils, except the tail, which was held on 

 one side, raised from the ground, and the tip kept 

 vibrating at a great speed." 



Since the trees in the Bornean forests are even more 

 densely crowded with animal life than the floor of the 

 jungle itself, it is not surprising to find that some 

 snakes are driven to search for their prey in surround- 

 ings that we are not accustomed to associate with 

 limbless animals. Snakes can easily climb trees by 

 working their way up the trunks, their ventral scales 

 getting a good hold on the asperities in the bark, or 

 they insinuate themselves between the twisting stems of 

 the creepers which festoon most of the jungle trees, 

 forming rope ladders, of which they readily avail them- 

 selves. No doubt most kinds descend by the way up 

 which they climb, but three species have the power 

 of making a sort of parachute flight from a lofty eleva- 

 tion to a lower level. These three are Chrysopelea ornata, 

 C. chrysochlora, and Dendrophis pictus. To assert that 

 snakes can " fly " is bound to challenge criticism, if 

 not to provoke vigorous protests against wilful perver- 

 sion of the truth ; it will be well then to give in 

 some detail an account of the "flying" habit mani- 

 fested by Chrysopelea ornata. When I first arrived in 

 Sarawak I was entertained by some of the Kuching 

 residents with stories of the strange and wonderful 

 habits of the animals of the jungle ; many of the 

 stories were palpably manufactured with intent to 

 deceive the guileless newcomer, and the story of the 

 flying snakes was one that I inwardly put into this 

 category. When the Dayak hunter attached to the 

 Sarawak Museum brought in one day a dead specimen 

 of Chrysopelea ornata and remarked that he had seen 



