DISSECTION OF THE SNAKE. 
49 
be bursting, and his windpipe projected three inches beyond his 
jaws. The horns of the goat, which had advanced only a few inches 
down his swallow, protruded so much, that I expected them every 
instant to penetrate through the intervening membrane of the scales, 
which they separated from each other. After the goat was down, he 
scarcely moved from the posture he was in during his last act of 
deglutition, but fell into a semi-torpid state, from which no irri- 
tation could rouse him for several days. At this time he mea- 
sured three feet in his greatest circumference, having doubled 
his ordinary diameter. The goat’s body underwent no visible dimi- 
nution of bulk or consistence by the action of the snake’s folds, but 
seemed to pass down his throat in an entire state. 
This snake having died on his way to England, forty days after 
swallowing a second goat, I opened him with the view of observing his 
internal structure, and of ascertaining, if possible, the cause of his 
death. On the deck of a ship, and surrounded by a number of eager, 
but restless observers, I could not make the examination with all the 
precision I wished, but succeded in obtaining the dimensions of some of 
the principal viscera, and found that their magnitude generally 
corresponded with the external proportions of the body. The 
lungs consisted of two lobes, closely attached to his ribs ; the left 
being three feet three inches, and the right one foot ten inches in 
length. The heart was about the size of a goose’s egg. The aesopha- 
gus was six feet six inches long, and the stomach one foot nine 
inches : the breadth of the latter when opened, and gently expanded, 
was one foot. The intestines measured five feet six inches in length. 
The liver consisted of two lobes, each lobe being three feet long. 
The gall-bladder was the size of the heart, and full of a green viscid 
bile. Each of the kidnies was a foot in length. The spleen consisted 
of a large number of loosely-connected dark-coloured conglobate 
glands. 
The coats of the stomach were very thick and muscular, and thrown 
into a variety of folds. Its oesophageal and intestinal orifices were 
very contracted, and the latter would scarcely allow the introduc- 
H 
