SNAKES OF CEYLON. 57 



Food. — The python, as the following remarks will testify, 

 is practically omnivorous. It feeds on mammals, birds, and 

 reptiles indiscriminately, but seems to prefer mammals of 

 relatively large proportions. 



Its courage and power may be estimated by the fact that 

 it has been known to overcome and devour a full-grown leopard 

 (Felix pardus), sustaining but trivial injuries in the encounter. 

 Thus Major Begbie related the circumstances leading to the 

 death of a python by coolies, which subsequent dissection 

 showed had eaten a leopard measuring 4 feet 2 inches from 

 nose to rump. The snake was 18 feet long, and except for 

 seven claw cuts appeared to have escaped unhurt. 



Encounters with tigers also occur, but in the only instances 

 known to me, the snake had the worst of it. Whether it 

 was the aggressor in these contests it is impossible to know. 

 Mr. Inverarity* after killing a tiger found some 2 feet 3 inches 

 of the tail end of a python in the stomach. Another proof 

 of a similar encounter is through Professor Von Linstow r ,f 

 who found a tape -worm taken from the intestine of a tiger 

 killed in the United Provinces was of a species known to 

 inhabit the python, which it must previously have eaten. 



Many are the records of its having eaten deer. Jerdon J 

 mentions one having eaten a cheetah (Cervus axis). Dr. 

 Elmes told me that he saw a hog deer (C. porcinus) cut out 

 of a python killed by a neighbour, and the horns he thought 

 must have been fully a foot long. The 18-footer that Mr. 

 Harry had killed on his estate in Assam had swallowed a 

 barking deer (C. muntjac), whose horns were 4 inches or 

 more long. Mr. Copeland had a 15 -foot snake killed on his 

 estate while I was in Assam, which was proved to have 

 swallowed a hog deer. 



The Rev. Caste ts, S.J., wrote to me of a sambur fawn (C. 

 unicolcr) being devoured whilst the dam stood by helpless. 

 Tennent mentions a chevrotain (Tragulus meminna) being 

 eaten by one in Ceylon. Colonel Charmer recorded one that 

 had killed a langur monkey which lay in its coils at the time 



* Vol. X., p. 69. 



f The Field, December 21, 1907. 



t Journ. Bom. N. H. Soc, Vol. XVI., p. 520. 

 13 6(6)20 



