58 SNAKES OF CEYLON 



of encounter. The snake proved to be 12 feet 10 inches long. 

 The attendant at Cross's Menagerie in Liverpool told me 

 that one of their pythons got loose, and ate a monkey with 

 ths collar and chain that were attached to it, on which account 

 probably it disgorged its meal some two days later. In the 

 Pioneer of July 13, 1907, an 18-foot python killed at Raj 

 Shahi was found to have eaten a jackal (Ganis aureus). 



In the Philosophical Transactions,* a gentleman is reported 

 to have found a snake on an island near Bombay lying dead 

 with the quills of a porcupine (Hysirix leucura) sticking out 

 through its ribs. We may assume that the snake was a 

 python, as no other Indian species could swallow such an 

 animal. I have also seen masses of porcupine quills that had 

 passed in the dung of pythons. These softened by the 

 digestive juices had been matted into masses which were 

 hard to unravel, the quills having regained their rigidity 

 after drying. 



In the Field of December 21, 1907, Mr. Thwaites relates 

 having seen a python in Ceylon spring at a hare (Lepus nigri- 

 collis) that was racing by. Ferguson reports an 8-footer at 

 Quilon that had killed a kid. 



Birds are frequently preyed upon by this snake. Mr. 

 Thwaites mentions a peacock in the coils of a python in 

 Ceylon, and Colonel Evans knew one in Burma eat a pheasant 

 (Gennxus lineatus). One, when I was in Dibrugarh, was 

 killed in the act of swallowing a chicken. Mr. Staunton 

 killed one in Assam that had swallowed three of his ducks, 

 and another made an unwelcome visit to Dr. Elmes's fowl- 

 house, accounting for five ducks, four fowls, and one pigeon 

 of his stock, all of which had been swallowed, giving the 

 snake a beaded appearance. Dr. Elmes shot another which 

 he saw lying in a bhil (lake), and found the following in its 

 stomach : — Two large and two small water rats, and two or 

 three toads. Reptiles sometimes furnish the repast. Mr. 

 Millard records one in the Bombay Natural History Society's 

 rooms swallowing a monitor lizard (Varanus bengalensis), a 

 rat, and two frogs in quick succession. In its native jungles 



Vol. XLITL, 1744, p, 271. 



