76 



Notice of the Hahits of the large [No. 33, 



being more adapted for constriction than loconnotion. At the root of 

 the tail two organs may be seen resembling hooks or claws, and 

 which have been supposed by some authors to be mere useless ru- 

 diments of limbs, but to the animal they are of the most important 

 use, particularly to the larger species ; for by them the snake fastens 

 itself to a tree, thereby giving itself greater power and free use of its 

 body when encircling some victim within its folds. 



The neighbourhood of water or the vicinity of some forest path is 

 the favourite haunt of this reptile — his tail entwined round the trunk 

 or stump of a tree, his body carefully hid from view by the thick fo- 

 liage or rank grass of the jungle, he lies perfectly still and motion- 

 less waiting for any unconscious animal that may be repairing to the 

 stream to slake its thirst. The moment its intended victim passes 

 within reach the snake darts upon it, making the jaws meet in its 

 throat, and entwining its body in folds around the chest of the prey, 

 BO as to cause suffocation; death ensues merely from want of power 

 of expansion in the chest to enable the lungs to play. When satis- 

 fied that life is extinct, the reptile gradually unlocks each limb by 

 unfolding its body and does not, to the best of my knowledge, fur- 

 ther break the bones of its prey (as is commonly believed) to better 

 enable deglutition ; if any bones are fractured it is merely from the 

 force used in suffocating the prey. In the case mentioned above 

 there was not a single broken bone in the body of the deer which is 

 sufHcient proof to show that deglutition can take place without frac- 

 ture of the skeleton. 



The next act is that of swallowing, and this is an operation that 

 takes considerable time and exertion on the part of the snake. He 

 generally commences by the head, which being the smaller part 

 serves to extend the throat of the Python and prepare it gradually 

 for the immense strain it has to undergo when forcing down the 

 more bulky part of the prey. The mechanism of the jaws of the snake 

 is wonderfully adapted for the distention they have to undergo — 

 the under-jaw articulates so loosely in the upper that dislocation can 

 take place at the symphasis without causing pain ; in carnivorous 

 animals and particularly among the felinse or cats, such as the tiger, 

 the condyle of the lower jaw is deeply set in a groove in the upper 

 which makes it, combined as it is with its shortness and the strength 

 of the temporal muscles, the most powerful jaw in existence. The 

 tiger's jaws are merely meant to hold fast and tear his prey, for he, 

 like the Python, bolts his food without mastication, the tuberculated 



