304 TIMEHRI 
breathing has ceased, the cessation of the respiratory 
and circulatory movements being easily deteéted under 
the tight clasp. Even after the death of the obje&, the 
tightening of the coils about it can, by artifice, be at once 
brought about by the slightest disturbance of the body, 
even at the very time of uncoiling preliminary to swal- 
lowing. 
There is a natural dread of these great water serpents 
among all native people, but attacks on man by them would 
seem to be of very rare occurrence, and only one instance 
has ever come direétly to my knowledge. In this case, 
a boy washing rice in a calabash by the waterside of one 
of the large creeks, was seized by the hand by a medium- 
sized snake, and it would perhaps have terminated fatally, 
but that the boy’s father, who was chopping wood close by 
with a cutlass, at once despatched the reptile. From the 
circumstances of the case, it is very likely that the attack 
was accidental., In the charaéteristically dark-coloured 
water of the creek, it is hardly possible that the boy 
could have been seen by the snake. The probability is 
that the sound made by the calabash in the water, was 
mistaken for that of some animal drinking, and the attack 
made accordingly. This seems more likely still from the 
fa&t that there was not the immediate coiling around the 
boy so charaéteristic of the attack of these creatures, and 
it is probable, that if the boy had been able to keep still 
and allow of the withdrawal of the long curved teeth, the 
snake would have sunk again from sight. 
The above explanation may seem a fanciful one, but it 
is hardly possible that, under the abundant opportunities 
for the favourable attack on man by these water boas 
under local conditions, there should not be many cases 
ee ee ee 
