196 THE HABITS OF MALAY REPTILES. 
these have been found in Singapore. A number have only been 
collected once or twice, and some of the records may be consi- 
dered doubtful, but as only a small part of the peninsula has been 
yet collected in, we may expect large additions as time goes on. 
One of the commonest is the Python (P. reticulatus), the 
Ular Sawah of the Malays. It is perhaps the largest snake in 
the world, a specimen measuring 40 feet having been reported 
as obtained by a scientific expedition in Manila. Pythons of 20 
feet in length are by no means uncommon here, and specimens 
of 26 feet are occasionally met with, but accurate measurements 
of larger ones are still required. The python is nocturnal in its 
habits, remaining concealed under bushes or fallen logs during 
the day, and wandering about at night in search of food. It 
eats squirrels and rats and birds, and often makes its way into 
a hen-house, where it not only eats half a dozen or more chick- 
ens ina night, but usually kills more than it eats. The larger 
ones will also eat dogs and cats, goats and pigs. A snakea little 
over seventeen feet long ate two black swans on the garden lake 
at the rate of one a month, and I have had a python of about 
15 or 16 feet long brought me, which had just swallowed twelve 
ducks. On one occasion five pythons were put together into 
alarge cage. The biggest was a little over nineteen feet long, 
another was between 17 and 18 feet, and the other three were 
from 12 to 15 feet in length. The biggest snake ate all the 
three smaller ones in two nights, and attacked the remaining 
one, which however succeeded in beating it off, not without 
being wounded. But although they are sometimes very vora- 
cious, they will often go without food for a very long period. A 
large one, twenty feet long, was fed on a good sized pariah dog, 
after which it refused food for nine months, when it passed the 
remains of the dog, and began to feed again. Another remained 
for seven months without food, in the same manner. Smaller 
snakes feed oftener, usually once a month, and sometimes even 
oftener than that. A hungry python strikes its prey with light- 
ning-like rapidity, usually seizing it by the head, if it is small 
enough, in which case the animal or bird is killed by the crush- 
ing of the head. It then, turning its head down, encloses the 
prey in a coil and a half and proceeds to swallow it slowly. In 
the case of fairly large animals, and those that are not killed by 
