THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



an Indian, (coachman to the gentleman with 

 whom I was stopping,) in company with a friend, 

 to the house of a priest, who had some singularly 

 large specimens of the boa-constrictor [python] ; 

 one, of two that were in a wooden pen together, 

 could hardly have been less than fifty feet long, 

 and the stoutest part as thick round as a very 

 fat man's body."* 



Bontius speaks of some which were upwards of 

 thirty-six feet long; doubtless Oriental pythons. 

 An American boa is mentioned by Bingley, of the 

 same length, the skin of which was in the cabinet 

 of the Prince of Orange ; and Shaw mentions a 

 skin in the British Museum which measured thirty- 

 five feet. Probably in these last two cases we 

 must allow something for stretching. 



In the Bombay Cornier, of August 31, 1799, a 

 dreadful story is narrated of a Malay sailor hav- 

 ing been crushed to death by a python on the 

 coast of Celebes. His comrades, hearing his 

 shrieks, went to his assistance, but only in time 

 to save the corpse from its living grave. They, 

 however, killed the serpent. It had seized the 

 poor man by the wrist, where the marks of the 

 teeth were very distinct, and the body shewed 

 evident signs of having been crushed by coils 

 round the head, neck, breast, and thigh. The 

 length of the monster was "about thirty feet, and 

 its thickness that of a moderate-sized man."' 



Mr. M'Leod, in the "Voyage of H.M.S. Alceste," 

 has minutely described the feeding of a python 

 from Borneo, which was sixteen feet long, and 

 observes that, at Whydah, in Africa, he had seen 

 serpents, "more thnn double the size" of this 

 specimen; but it does not seem that they were 

 measured. 



* Ellis's "Manilla," p. 237. 

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