178 SNAKES OF CEYLON. 



in a position unfavourable for swallowing, is characteristic, 

 and it can exert a very considerable strength in this manner. 

 Mr. Hampton tells me he has seen it hold a rat down with its 

 body, pressing it tightly on the ground, and Mr. Millard gives 

 me a Very striking example of this behaviour. He says : 

 " One of these which we were keeping in the same cage as our 

 python recently caught a rat (which was put in for food) by 

 the tail. The rat turned and bit the dhaman severely, and 

 the dha man killed it by holding on to the tail and pressing the 

 rat against the body of the python and the floor of the cage. 

 Severe pressure must have been brought to bear, as the rat — 

 a full-sized one — was dead in three or four minutes." 



Here I may draw attention to the frontispiece of Lyddeker's 

 Royal Natural History, Vol. V., which shows this snake 

 entwined in a most unnatural manner round a perpendicular 

 bamboo stem, a large part of its body free, and holding a large 

 rat with a serenity and facility Very unreal. I doubt whether 

 this acrobatic performance is possible for more than a few 

 seconds, apart from the manner in which it is shown bolting its 

 meal. It is regrettable that the inaccuracies of a skilled artist 

 should pass the censorship of so great a naturalist. 



The quarry once captured is swallowed at once, so that in 

 the case of inoffensive creatures, such as frogs, it is no unusual 

 circumstance for them to reach the stomach sufficiently alive 

 for their suppressed cries to be distinctly audible ; and, more- 

 over, remarkable as it may seem, when rescued from their 

 engulfment, it is a fairly common event for them, after the 

 lapse of some minutes, to recover sufficiently to hop away. I 

 have witnessed this on several occasions, and Kelsall has 

 recorded a similar experience. 



Rats, though sometimes preyed upon, are not nearly so 

 staple an article of diet as suggested by its name. Mr. Hamp- 

 ton tells me that in captivity in Regent's Park, London, he 

 was familiar with this snake, and saw it seizing and devouring 

 good-sized rats with avidity, but that his specimens in Burma, 

 far from liking rats, seem to be afraid of them, preferring an 

 exclusively batrachian fare. Lizards, birds, and other small 

 vertebrates form a welcome supplement to its voracitj^. 

 Recently, in Fvzabad, a three-footer was found in a shrub 



