1650 The Zoologist— May, 18G9. 



should be presented to the creature crawling on a little stick or twig, 

 and the bright eye of the so-called blind-worm seems at once to sparkle 

 with pleasure ; but there is no rapid motion — indeed there is no need 

 for haste — in seizing the victim as in the case of lizards feeding 

 on flies : on the contrary, the head is raised above the slug by an almost 

 imperceptible movement quite in accordance with the deliberate gliding 

 progress of the slug ; and when the head is directly above what we 

 might call the loins of the slug, the mouth is slowly opened and the 

 slug bitten just in the manner that a dog bites a rat. 



The skin — and I speak from oft-repeated observation — is shed 

 piecemeal, and generally once in the year: Mr. Bell, I see, makes a 

 different statement, viz., that it comes off in one piece in the same 

 manner as that of Ophidians : this I have never seen. 



When handled the blind-worm becomes excessively rigid, and the 

 body and tail will separate rather than the creature will allow itself to 

 be unbent : like the lizards, it has the power of partially reproducing 

 the lost tail. 



Order IV. Snakes {Ophidia). 



Have a long and flexible body without legs, and closely covered 

 with scutes or divisions: the bones of the head are separate, and so 

 loosely arranged as to admit of an almost indefinite expansion of the 

 jaws; hence the possible truth of some of the marvellous accounts of 

 boas swallowing animals apparently larger than themselves. A Cyclo- 

 pedia of high reputation now before me, says that "some of the species 

 attain a very large size, measuring thirty or forty feet in length, and 

 when they are of that size they can master deer or even buffaloes." 

 A celebrated traveller tells a story of a boa having swallowed a horse 

 as large as a Loudon dray-horse. We also read of an enormous snake 

 in Africa arresting the progress of a Roman army, and this event is 

 narrated in a manner that has no prima facie evidence of exaggeration. 

 All I can say of such accounts is that the skins in our museums and 

 the admeasurements actually made do not convey to my mind any^ 

 idea of such enormous bulk. The ribs are slender and very numerous ; 

 and, from repeated observation, they appear to me the principal 

 organs of progression : by watching the common snake as it moves 

 slowly about its place of confinement, the ribs are seen to move in 

 succession like the legs of a centipede. Most authors seem to con- 

 sider the ventral scutes as the principal means of progression ; but in 

 this I am not disposed to agree, since the feeling, when a tame snake 



