52 REPTILES AND BIRDS. 



stomach, that they swallow entire boars." He adds that he knew 

 persons who had partaken of a hog cut out of the stomach of a 

 serpent of this kind. " They are not poisonous," he adds, " but 

 they strangle by powerfully applying their folds round the body of 

 their prey." Mr. M'Leod, in his interesting " Voyage of the Alceste" 

 states that during a captivity of some months at Whidah, on the coast 

 of Africa, he had opportunities of observing serpents double this 

 length, one of which engaged a negro servant of the Governor 

 of Fort William in its coil, and very nearly succeeded in crushing 

 him to death. There can be no doubt that the length is here much 

 exaggerated. About thirty feet is the utmost length attained by the 

 most gigantic serpents of which we possess accurate knowledge. 



The body of the Python is large and round. They live on trees 

 in warm damp places, on the banks of streams or watercourses, and 

 attack the animals which, to slake their thirst, have the mishap to 

 pass near them. Attached by their tail to the limb of a tree, they 

 remain immovable in their ambush until their opportunity comes, 

 when they dart upon their prey with amazing rapidity, wrap their 

 bodies round it, and crush it in their powerful folds. Animals as 

 large as gazelles, and even larger, thus become their victims. Their 

 jaws are extremely distensible, for, having neither breast-bone nor 

 false sides, they can easily increase the diameter of the opening to 

 an almost incredible extent. 



The Ophidians (as we have seen) surpass all other Reptiles in the 

 number of their vertebras, with incomplete haemal arches ; these 

 constitute the skeleton of the long, slender, limbless trunk. All 

 these vertebras coalesce with one another, and are articulated together 

 by ball-and-socket joints. Besides this articulation to the centrum, 

 the vertebrae of Ophidians articulate with each other by means of 

 joints which interlock by parts reciprocally receiving and entering 

 one another, like the tenon-and-mortise joint in carpentry. "The 

 vertebral ribs have an oblong articular surface, concave above and 

 almost flat below, in the Python. They have a large medullary cavity, 

 with dense but thin walls, with a fine cancellated structure at their 

 articular ends. Their lower end supports a short cartilaginous mem- 

 brane, closing the haemal arch, which is attached to the broad and 

 stiff abdominal scute. These scutes, alternately raised and depressed 

 by muscles attached to the ribs and integuments, aid in the gliding 

 movement of serpents." 



The peculiar motion of snakes was first noted by Sir Joseph Banks, 

 and commented on by Sir Everard Home. Sir Joseph was observing 

 a Coluber of unusual size, and thought he saw its ribs come forward 



