THE BOA-CONSTRICTOR. 359 



" According to the statements of the natives," says Humboldt, " you 

 may sometimes see, on the return of the rainy season, the humid clay 

 slowly uplifted and loosened in great clods. A violent detonation 

 soon makes itself heard, and the earth is flung up into the air to a 

 great height, as in eruptions of small mud volcanoes. If you under- 

 stand the cause of this phenomenon you will quickly take to flight, 

 for from this retreat immediately emerges a monstrous water-serpent 

 or a plated crocodile, which the first shower has awakened from his 

 lethargy." The great water-serpent here spoken of is, in all proba- 

 bility, the gigantic Boa-Constrictor, one of the most dangerous denizens 

 of the marshy plains of equatorial America. Travellers of unimpeach- 

 able authority assert that this frightful reptile often attains the length 

 of thirty-six to forty-five feet. Day and night he lurks among the 

 tall rank herbage ; in the morning and the evening he places himself 

 in ambush on the border of some lake or water-course to surprise the 

 quadrupeds which flock thither to quench their thirst. By means of 

 his prehensile tail he suspends himself to a tree on the shore, and 

 patiently awaits the coming prey. When an animal passes within 

 his reach, he swiftly seizes it, enfolds it in his spiral coils, crushes it 

 against the tree which serves for his point d'appui, compresses its 

 bleeding mass into a convenient form, covers it with a glutinous 

 saliva, and swallows it. In this fashion the boa will devour a stag 

 or even an ox entire, nor does he fear to attack the puma and the 

 jaguar. Whether he is dangerous to man may reasonably be doubted ; 

 his immense size, at all events, renders it easy to avoid him. He 

 preys upon fish in default of other provision, and to catch his victims 

 often remains for a considerable time with his head and a portion of 

 his body plunged under water. 



The true scourges of tropical America and the Antilles are the 

 Rattlesnake and the lance-headed Viper. 



The Rattlesnake (Crotalus hon^idus) is one of the deadliest of 

 venomous serpents, is frequently six feet in length, and as thick as a 

 man's leg. But Providence has furnished it with an antidote 

 against its own poison, or, at least, with an instrument which makes 



