330 Animal Life 
bulk apparently far too big for the snake, is so crushed and mangled that it is turned 
into the shape of a sausage preparatory to the long process of swallowing.” 
With all due deference to the author, I venture to think that the size of the 
animal that a giant anaconda is capable of swallowing is just one of those things 
that common sense does not teach us. And, as in the case of the dimensions 
attained by these reptiles, we must await trustworthy and accurate observations in 
the field before we are capable of comimg to a definite conclusion on this point, 
although it may be fairly granted that not even the greatest snake alive could 
swallow a tiger, let alone a cow. We may therefore dismiss as incredible the 
above-mentioned story of an Indian python having swallowed a young wild ox. On 
the other hand, the statement that a Malay python on board H.M.S. Alceste 
swallowed a goat, the horns of which distended its skin for many days after the 
meal, appears thoroughly well authenticated. 
It is a common, if unfounded, belief that animals of past epochs exceeded their 
living relatives in corporeal bulk; and this belief may be thought to receive confirmation 
from the occurrence of remains of a very large species of snake in the Hocene deposits 
of Hgypt. The vertebre of this snake, which has been named Gigantophis, are stated 
by Dr. C. W. Andrews, its describer, to be much larger than those of any existing 
serpent. They were compared with those of the African Python sebw, and inferred 
to indicate a snake of about thirty feet in length. As this is the length reputed to 
be attained by the Malay python, to say nothing of the anaconda, the comparison 
scarcely seems to justify the statement that the extinct Hgyptian snake exceeds all the 
living members of the group in size. On the other hand, I believe that its describer 
has underrated the size of the fossil reptile, and that forty feet would be a nearer 
estimate of its length. 
Side by side with those of the species just mentioned occur vertebree of another 
very large although decidedly smaller snake, for which the name Meriophis was at 
first suggested, although it subsequently turned out to be generically inseparable from 
an Eocene North American snake described as Pterosphenus. They are of quite a 
different type from those of Gigantophis, and from their compressed form and _ tall 
dorsal spine it is highly probable that they indicate snakes with compressed and 
wedge-shaped bodies more or less nearly related to the sea-snakes of the present day, 
although far larger. Remains of apparently allied snakes, of the genus Pal@ophis, occur 
in the London Clay and other Hocene deposits of our own country. If the vertebrae 
of Gigantophis indicate a snake of forty feet in length, those of the extinct Egyptian 
sea-snake would seem to have belonged to one of about five-and-twenty feet. As the | 
largest of modern sea-snakes do not exceed five or six feet im length, the extinct 
Egyptian species seems entitled to be regarded as a veritable ‘“‘sea-serpent,” albeit one 
fallmg short of the popular estimation in point of size. 
And this reminds me that an article on great snakes would hardly be considered 
complete without a word of reference to that more or less mythical monster. I shall, 
however, content myself with observing that, with the exception of the aforesaid 
Egyptian and English Eocene vertebre, the former of which indicate, at best, but a 
very poor imitation of the popular ideal of the sea-serpent, naturalists are at present 
unacquainted with any living or extinct snake of marine habits and of dimensions at 
all approaching those generally assigned to that creature. Moreover, the sea-serpent is 
frequently described as being furnished with paddles and as swimming with the body 
thrown into vertical folds. Whatever, therefore, may be the nature of the supposed 
monster, there can be tittle doubt that it is not a snake. 
