THE BOA-CONSTRICTOR. 
By H. Georce F. Spurrent, with Illustrations from Photographs 
by the Author. 
MONG the vast variety of snakes which inhabit the warm parts of the globe 
three main types are distinguishable. There is the slender type, with a hard, 
cylindrical body, of active habits and preferring small prey and frequent meals. Snakes 
of this type are not usually poisonous. There is the short, rather soft type, with a 
flattened body and sluggish habits. Most of this latter type make feeding an easier 
business by being venomous and first killing their prey. And, finally, there is the 
type which is built for strength, of which the Boa-Constrictor is a good example. 
These constricting snakes have a thick body and usually a comparatively short 
tail. They are deliberate in their movements, and generally lie in ambush for their prey. 
But they are extremely muscular, and feed principally upon warm-blooded animals and 
birds, large and active prey, which they kill almost instantaneously by rolling them up 
in their coils. Their heads are small in comparison to the thickness of their bodies, 
but the bones of the skull are so articulated that the jaws will open out and allow 
the snake to swallow an animal much thicker than itself. Thus, feeding upon 
nourishing food and gettmg a big meal at a time, they grow very quickly. The 
-boa-constrictor from which the accompanying photographs were taken was only twenty 
inches long and weighed only a few ounces eighteen months ago, when he first came 
into my possession. He is now just six feet long and about eight pounds in weight. 
The original snake type has developed along several different limes. There are 
snakes which are adapted to living in trees, underground, in rivers and lakes, and 
even in the sea. The vipers represent the highest stage of development along one 
line, the constrictors along another. The vipers le in wait for their prey, kill it 
by poison, and then swallow 
and digest at leisure. The 
constrictors avoid wasting 
energy in another way. They 
kill a big meal at a time 
by their strength, and then 
do not exert themselves until 
they want another. 
' My own boa-constrictor 
has illustrated this principle 
admirably. The first mouse 
he ate lasted him a fort- 
night, and as it digested he 
grew. Then he changed his 
skin and ate again, and the 
next mouse did not last so 
long. By the time he was 
big enough to eat three or 
four mice in succession he gt 
could manage a sparrow. AT REST ON A BRANCH. 
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