454 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HLST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXL 



ripening many animals especially deer visited these trees to eat the 

 fallen fruit. After having been quiet for some time, he noticed 

 close to him a movement in what he had up till then taken to be an 

 aeriol root, but which on closer inspection proved to be a python 

 suspended by its tail, and evidently established there for the 

 same purpose that had actuated the sportsman. I have heard of 

 pythons quartering themselves in hollow trees, and frequenting 

 those on which egrets and night herons roost, to which at night 

 the pythons stealthily crept and successfully took toll of. 



In water this snake is quite at home, in fact it might be con- 

 sidered semi-aquatic in habit. It swims deftly and strongly, 

 when its inclination prompts such activity, but is often to be 

 observed partially or wholly submerged near the bank of a river, 

 or jheel. As in captivity, it will lie for hours showing nothing 

 but the tip of its snout, which is pushed out to raise the nostrils 

 above the surface, and permit breathing. It can remain 

 beneath the water entirely for many minutes. Colonel Fife 

 Cookson * says that observations were made at Eegent's Park 

 which showed that it could keep entirely submerged for half an 

 hour. I asked the attendant at Cross' Menagerie in Liverpool 

 some years ago to make special observations in this direction, and 

 he told me later that one kept its head below the water for 11 

 minutes, and remained above 9 minutes subsequently before again 

 retiring below. Another kept below 1 2 minutes, and another 1 5 

 minutes. 



If only partially submerged in water in its native haunts it 

 keeps so still that any part of the body exposed is likely to be taken 

 for a branch or root. My informant at Cross' Menagerie also told 

 me that one kept in its bath from Wednesday till Sunday of one 

 week, and often the sloughing period is passed in their tanks, from 

 which the snake emerges resplendent in its new attire. 



It is evidently a thirsty reptile, and in consequence probably is 

 often impelled towards water for this reason. The dam in Paris 

 in 1841 after accomplishing her maternal duties, and suc- 

 cessfully launching forth her brood, drank eagerly swallowing 



* Tio-er shooting in the Doon and Ulwar, p. 31- 



