A. Visit to the Python in the Zoological Gardens. 125 



without a third eyelid; naked serpents, which have no scales. 

 The true serpents, as grouped by Cuvier, comprise those which 

 have no sternum or shoulder-blade. Many of them have, how- 

 ever, rudimentary posterior limbs, of which the boas and py- 

 thons are examples. The protrusion of these in the form of 

 anal hooks is usually visible, and they are no doubt of some use 

 to the animal in locomotion, and in that peculiar act of grasping 

 a tree by the tail while lying in wait for prey on the bank of a 

 pool or stream. Professor Owen {Odontography) proposes to 

 divide the Ophidia into two groups, in order to separate those 

 which feed on small invertebrate animals from the typical ophi- 

 dians, which swallow animals of greater diameter than their 

 own. The first have the jaws articulated in a way which admits 

 of no expansion, whereas in the typical ophidians the superior 

 maxillaries are joined by an elastic tissue with the intermaxil- 

 lary bone, and the articulations of the maxillary rami and the 

 pterygoid bones are also elastic, and a dislocation of the whole 

 framework takes place during the act of deglutition. 



The pythons and boas form a very distinct family in the 

 order Ophidia. The hinder limbs are developed under the 

 skin, and terminate in a horny spine on each side of the vent. 

 They are without venom, but are compensated for that by their 

 immense muscular force, by the exertion of which they crush 

 their prey, by the almost painless process of constriction. The 

 pythons at the Zoological Gardens illustrate the external aspects 

 and habits of the family in a most satisfactory manner, and the 

 preparations at the British Museum and College of Surgeons, 

 afford the fullest information of their anatomical structure and 

 typical relatio3iships. There are so few differences between 

 boas and pythons, that those terms have little else than a geo- 

 graphical signification. Those of the old world are usually 

 known as pythons, those of the new world, as boas ; though 

 boa is a classic term, and, according to Pliny, was applied by 

 the ancients to certain old-world serpents which were supposed 

 to subsist on the milk of cows. But as Boa is a Brazilian name 

 for a serpent, there is an end of all difficulty as to how the 

 word shoiud have the same meaning' both in the East and the 

 West. In the true pythons, the crown of the head is shielded 

 to behind the eyes, the upper and lower labial shields are 

 deeply pitted, and the nostrils are vertical. In the boas the 

 labial shields are smooth, not pitted ; the crown is covered with 

 scales, and the nostrils are lateral between two plates. The 

 species which has recently attracted attention on account of its 

 fertility, is Python molurus (Gray), known also as P. Coluber 

 (Linn.), P. Javanicus (Kuhl), P. Tigris (Daudin). It is a native 

 of Hindustan and Java. It is understood to attain to a length 

 of thirty and more feet, but large specimens are becoming rare, 



