THE BOA-CONSTRICTORS. 297 
veloped dorsal muscles from which they derive their 
great strength. The males, asarule, are more elongated, 
and the females thicker towards the end of the body. 
In this species, as in the other constri€tors, rudiments 
of hind-limbs are found in the form of claws, one on each 
side of the vent. | 
These snakes are aquatic, and frequent especially 
the grassy and sheltered banks in the still reaches of 
the streams, and the wide, open water-savannahs. They 
are widely distributed in all such places over the colony, 
and are abundant in all the coast distri€ts, more especially 
in the sheltered water-ways close to settlements in the 
country where poultry is reared. Small specimens up to 
about ro feet in length are very frequently caught in 
such shallow waters, and larger specimens are met with 
occasionally lying on the grass or tree-stumps by the 
water-side, or in the aét of constricting or swallowing their 
prey, when they seem, as a rule, altogether disinclined 
to move, except so far as the contortion of their body for 
swallowing is concerned. 
It is mentioned on apparently good evidence that 
after having swallowed an animal of large size, these 
creatures lie torpid, and are incapable of escaping if 
disturbed ; but to the writer’s knowledge no such case 
has ever been met with in the colony, and it may be 
doubted whether snakes that were big enough to take in 
large animals would be afterw irds incapable of move- 
ment, the more especially that they are little likely to be 
far away from the moist bank of some waterway. 
From the habitat of these reptiles, it is not difficult to 
see that they are well situated tor securing their food. 
From the abundance of creatures that slake their thirst 
