The Boa-Constrictors. 
By F. F. Quelch, B. Sc. Lond., C,M.Z.S. 
4 LESE reptiles possess a somewhat special in- 
terest for residents in tropical America, seeing 
that they are at once a pest and a pest- 
destroyer i in the general economy of nature. The term, 
boa-constri€tor, in common parlance, is applied to any 
snake that secures its prey by enwrapping and crushing 
it to death, and it is more frequently used perhaps 
to denote the great pythons of Asia and Africa than the 
constri€ting snakes of tropical America, to one species 
of which—the great land boa—in a stri€t system of 
nomenclature, the name rightly belongs. The Boas are - 
thus, typically, the constriétors of the New World, though 
they are not confined to it. 
Locally, the word Camoodie is synonymous with boa- 
constriétor, and the various species are denoted by such 
terms as Water Camoodie, Land Camoodie, Tree Camoo- 
die, etc. Generally, however, the water species is re- 
ferred to particularly as Camoodie, this being the 
commonest, or at any rate that one which is found most 
frequently, close to the haunts of man ; and as it is also 
the largest, it has come to figure in the public mind as 
the typical boa-constri€tor, in place of its land congener 
to which the name belongs. 
This group of snakes will readily be recognised here 
by two very simple charaéters, The jaws are long, and 
carry each a series of more or less curved and elongated 
teeth; and the top of the head is covered with small 
