378 BATH. 



among the fragmentary rocks. He inquired, and 

 found that this, to him, very extraordinary Snake 

 was well enough known thereabouts. He afterwards 

 learned that it was occasionally encountered in the 

 woods about Bath, in St. Thomas in the East. When 

 your application to the public was published in the 

 * Agricultural Reporter,' he felt so anxious to meet 

 your call for this particular reptile, that he offered a 

 pound for a specimen ; but although he had several 

 promises from persons who professed to be acquainted 

 with the Snake, he was not fortunate enough to ob- 

 tain one. He has promised to be mindful still of the 

 subject for you. 5th January, 1847." 



While engaged in preparing these pages for the 

 press, I looked over the magnificent volumes of Seba, 

 " Thesaurus Rerum Naturalium," hoping that in the 

 vast number of Serpents delineated by him, I might 

 discover some parallel to the structure of this extra- 

 ordinary animal. Nor was I wholly disappointed. 

 In his second volume, plate 103, is the representation 

 of a large Serpent, assigned to both Arabia and 

 Brazil, about which, it is true, some rather apo- 

 cryphal legends are narrated, but which seems to have 

 been drawn from a real subject. It has the occiput 

 enlarged into a bifid prominence, forming two 

 rounded lobes. In the same volume, pi. 18, fig. 3, 

 there is a Serpent from Amboyna, which is furnished 

 with a lengthened process curving downward from 

 the base of the inferior jaw on each side, the lower 

 edge of which appendage is pectinated, or beset with 

 a row of short bristles. But more to the purpose 

 are the figures of two species of rather small size, in 

 plate 40 of the same volume. Of the former, the 



