322 ST. ANN'S. 



Snakes. It is in such places alone that I have met 

 with them in a state of repose." 



A few days after this, Sam found a Boa lying in a 

 nest of trash, made between the spurs of a fig-tree 

 on Bluefields Mountain ; the nest partly covered by 

 some wood. The Serpent was coiled up, but there 

 were no eggs. 



The interesting circumstance of the Python bivit- 

 tatus incubating its eggs, which took place in the 

 menagerie of the Museum of Paris *, is thus shown 

 to be characteristic of the family ; the habit being 

 common to the American and Indian species of the 

 Boadce. For the fact that the foetus, in the case 

 which I have recorded above, was fully formed, and 

 capable of motion when extracted, sufficiently proves 

 that some time had elapsed since the deposition of 

 the eggs, while the exit of the Boa from the nest, 

 which led to the discovery, shows that the parent was 

 still fulfilling the duties of incubation. 



Other persons have assured me that often, on killing 

 a female Yellow Snake, they find the young in her 

 belly. And this is curiously confirmed by a note from 

 Mr. Hill, who thus writes me : " The Honourable 

 Thomas James Bernard, Member of the Council, has 

 related to me a very curious fact of the Yellow 

 Snake. Lately, his laboiurers in the Pedro Mountain 

 district, St. Ann's, killed a Yellow Snake containing 

 some ten or twelve grown young ones, varying from 

 eight to ten inches in length. The negroes ex- 

 pressed their surprise at this circumstance, because 



* Ann. des Sci. Nat. (2nd ser.) xvi. 65. 



