Miscellaneous, 395 



and body of the snake struck me so forcibly, and appeared so extra- 

 ordinary, that I forthwith proceeded to ascertain the exact relative 

 ])roportions, and found them as follow. The snake was twelve feet 

 nine inches long, transverse diameter of jaw inside three and a half 

 inches, neck round nine inches, greatest girth of body at thickest 

 part, when pig was out, eleven and a half inches. The pig weighed 

 thirty- seven catties and a half, or rather more than fifty pounds, was 

 a good three-fourths-grown young sow, and lay apparently without 

 a mark of violence upon its body — not a hair ruffled, legs unbroken ; 

 indeed old Isaac Walton never dealt more tenderly with his frog than 

 the Boa had seemingly done with young piggy. Upon closer exa- 

 mination it was however discovered that the ribs were broken ; but 

 as the animal remained in its place of sepulture some hours, suffi- 

 cient gases had been generated to rectify the effects of the crushing 

 and restore piggy to her pristine comeliness of shape ; the contrast 

 therefore was the more striking ; but still it is quite inconceivable 

 how the animal was ever swallowed : how the head of the pig passed 

 the jaws of the snake, would I think puzzle a conjuror to determine ; 

 and how the snake felt I leave to the consideration of some hopeless 

 dyspeptic. So distended were the walls of the abdomen by the un- 

 usual meal, that the whole pig could be seen plainly through them ; 

 they became diaphanous and thin as gold-beater's skin. The vitality 

 of the monster equalled his voracity, for, despite the numberless blows 

 of clubs on its head, two hours after the pig had been cut out of th6 

 abdomen, I saw the tail firmly coil itself around a stake. Boa met 

 with poetical justice, for, the same evening, he descended into the 

 very little less ravenous maws of some Chinese, who looked upon 

 the flesh as something exceedingly piquant and appetizing, and 

 eagerly they strove amongst themselves who should possess the 

 largest share of it. — From the Journal of the Indian Archipelago 

 and Eastern Asia for Feb. 1848. 



Observations on the Nummulites. By Messrs. Jolie and Letmerie. 



In this note the authors have presented the principal results of 

 their researches upon the Nummulites, and which it is intended shall 

 form the subject of a detailed memoir in connexion with some re- 

 searches upon the Bryozoa, Ehrenberg, Foraminifera, D'Orbigny, 

 contained in the fossiliferous deposits of the subpyrenean basin. 



The fossils under consideration are arranged by all naturalists 

 among animal productions, and are looked upon as a kind of cham- 

 ber analogous to shells, but a variety of opinions prevail with respect 

 to the form and organization of the animal of Nummulites, and the 

 position which it occupied in relation to these paradoxical shells. 

 Linnaeus first arranged this animal among the Madrepores, subse- 

 quently he made a Medusa of it, and finally classified it among the 

 cephalopodous Mollusca having a polythalamian outer shell. While 

 referring the animal of the Nummulite to this order of Mollusca, Deluc, 

 Lamarck and Cuvier considered that its shell was internal*, while 

 Bruguiere considered it to be partly contained in the last chamber 



• It was impossible for G. Cuvier to adopt any other opinion, since he 

 defined the Nummulites as shells exhibiting outwavdl)' a lenticular form 



