304 
REPTILES. 
[Chap. IX. 
not of such portentous dimensions, in the cinnamon 
gardens within a mile of the fort of Colombo, where it 
feeds on hog-deer, and other smaller animals. 
The natives occasionally take it alive, and securing it 
to a pole expose it for sale as a curiosity. One that 
was brought to me tied in this way measured seventeen 
feet with a proportionate thickness : but one more fully 
grown, which crossed my path on a coffee estate on the 
Peacock Mountain at Pusilawa, considerably exceeded 
these dimensions. Another which I watched in the 
garden at Elie House, near Colombo, surprised me by 
the ease with which it erected itself almost perpendi- 
cularly in order to scale a wall upwards of ten feet 
high. 
The Singhalese assert that when it has swallowed a 
deer, or any animal of similarly inconvenient bulk, the 
python draws itself through the narrow aperture between 
two trees, in order to crush the bones and assist in the 
process of deglutition. 
It is a singular fact that the small and innocuous 
ground-snakes called Galamarice, which abound on the 
continent of India and in the islands, are not to be found 
in Ceylon ; where they would appear to be replaced by 
two singular genera, the Aspidura and Haplocercus. 
These latter have only one series of shields below 
the tail, whilst most other harmless snakes (Gala- 
maria included) have a double series of sub-caudals. 
The Aspidura has been known to naturalists for 
many years 1 ; the Haplocercus of Ceylon has only 
recently been described by Dr. GKinther, and of it not 
more than three existing specimens are known : hence 
1 Boie in Isis 1827 p. 517. 
