310 SNAKES OF CEYLON. 



I very much doubt whether any snake moving along the flat 

 displays greater speed than this species in its arboreal 

 environment. 



But its marvellous attainments do not end here, for this 

 snake is endowed with the capability to spring, or " fly " as 

 some prefer to call this jactatory effort. Here, one is forcibly 

 reminded of the eulogistic terms in which the late Professor 

 Owen summed up the athletic performances of these limbless 

 creatures. 



He says : " They can outclimb the monkey, outswim the 

 fish, outleap the jerboa, and suddenly loosing the coils of their 

 crouching spiral, they can spring into the air, and seize the 

 bird upon the wing." 



One has only to be acquainted with Chrysopelea to realize 

 that Owen's words convey no fulsome flattery. 



That it actually can spring is vouched for by more than one 

 reliable observer. Flower* in 1899 reported having seen " a 

 small one, about 2 J feet long, take a flying leap from an 

 upstairs window downward and outward on to a branch of a 

 tree, and then crawl aAvay among the foliage. The distance 

 it had jumped was measured, and found to be nearly 8 feet." 



Curiously enough in the very month (May) and year (1899), 

 when this record ot Flower's was published, Mahon Daly wrote 

 from Siam reporting his having witnessed a similar feat. His 

 letter appeared in Vol. XII., p. 589, of the Bombay Natural 

 History Journal, and though he could not identify the snake, 

 he said that he and his Kareen interpreter saw a snake, 

 " about 2 J feet long sail from a very high tree on one side of 

 the road to a lower one the opposite side." 



In confirmation of these very extraordinary acrobatic feats, 

 which I have no doubt many might be inclined to disbelieve, 

 is the report made by Shelf ord of similar performances. f This 

 observer relates that three native witnesses in Sarawak made 

 a similar statement on three different occasions independently 

 of one another, and at considerable intervals of time. 



* Proc. Zool. Soc., Lond., 1899, p. 684. 

 f Proc. Zool. Soc, Lond., 1906, p. 227. 



