196 



ZOOLOGY. 



[PAKT II, 



of the death of a European which was caused by the 

 bite of a snake ; and in the returns of coroners' in- 

 quests made officially to my department, such accidents 

 to the natives appear chiefly to have happened at 

 night, when the animal, having been surprised or trodden 

 on, had inflicted the wound in self-defence. 1 For these 

 reasons the Singhalese, when obliged to leave their 

 houses in the dark, carry a stick with a loose ring, the 

 noise 2 of which as they strike it on the ground is 

 sufficient to warn the snakes to leave their path. 



The Python. - The great python 3 (the " boa," as it is 

 commonly designated by Europeans, the " anaconda " of 

 Eastern story), which is supposed to crush the bones of 

 an elephant, and to swallow the tiger, is found, though 

 not of so portentous dimensions, in the cinnamon gardens 

 within a mile of the fort of Colombo, where it feeds on 

 hog-deer and other smaller animals. 



The natives occasionally take it alive, and securing it 

 to a pole expose it for sale as a curiosity. One that 

 was brought to me in this way measured seventeen feet 

 with a proportionate thickness : but another which crossed 

 my path on a coffee -estate on the Peacock Mountain 

 at Pusilawa, considerably exceeded these dimensions. 

 Another which I watched in the garden at Elie House, 

 near Colombo, surprised me by the ease with which it 

 erected itself almost perpendicularly in order to scale a 

 wall upwards of ten feet high. 



Of ten species that ascend trees "to search for squirrels 

 and lizards, and to rifle the nests of birds, one half, 

 including the green carawilla, and- the deadly tic 

 polonga, are believed by the natives to be venomous ; but 



1 In a return of 112 coroners' in- 

 quests, in cases of death from wild 

 animals, held in Ceylon in five years/ 

 from 1851 to 1855 inclusive, 68 are 

 ascribed to the bites of serpents ; 

 and in almost every instance the as- 

 sault is set down as having taken 

 place at night. The majority of the 

 sufferers were children and women. 



2 PLINY notices that the serpent 

 has the sense of hearing- more acute 

 than that of sight; and that it is more 

 frequently put in motion by the sound 

 of footsteps than by the appearance 

 of the intruder, "excitatur pede 

 spepius." Lib. viii. c. 36. 



3 Python reticulatus, Gray. 



