382 SPANISH TOWN. 



ceived his specimens, you may the better apply your 

 information to your conclusions, particularly when 

 you shall take into account the Jamaica facts I am 

 now about to relate to you. 



" It was, I think, on Easter- eve, the 30th of 

 March last, that some youngsters of the town came 

 running to me to tell me of a curious Snake, unlike 

 any snake they had ever before seen, which young 

 Cargill had shot, when out for a day's sport among 

 the woodlands of a neighbouring penn. They de- 

 scribed it as in all respects a serpent, but with a very 

 curious shaped head, and with wattles hanging on 

 each side of its jaws. After taking it in hand and 

 looking at it, they placed it in a hollow tree intend- 

 ing to return for it, when they should be coming 

 home, but they had strolled from the place so far 

 that it was inconvenient to retrace their steps, when 

 wearied with rambling ; but they had lost no time 

 in relating the adventure to me, knowing it would 

 interest me much, particularly as young Cargill's 

 father had thought it a snake similar to the one he 

 had seen at Skibo in St. George's, or to the crested 

 serpent, for a specimen of which, when in St. Thomas's 

 in the East, he had offered the sum of twenty shil- 

 lings. The youth that shot the snake fell ill on the 

 following morning with fever, and could not go back 

 to the woodlands to seek it, but he sent his younger 

 brother who had been with him ; but although 

 he thought he rediscovered the tree in which his 

 brother had placed it, he could not find the Snake. 

 He conjectured the rats had devoured it in the night. 

 When this adventure was related to me, another 

 youth, Uhck Ramsay, a godson of mine, who came 



