82 
GREAT BOA. 
continued along the back, and between them many 
smaller ones of no particular form ; the ground co- 
lour is likewise scattered over with reddish brown 
specks. In the larger animals of this species the 
colours are not so vivid, but mix with each other, 
and assume a more uniform gray cast ; the reddish 
brown variegations sink into a deep chestnut. 
It was this enormous creature that so alarmed 
the Roman army when led by Regulus into Africa. 
It appears from Livy, that several soldiers had been 
swallowed by it, and many pressed to death in the 
spiral volumes of its tail ; that it had taken its 
station on the banks of the Bagrada, and that it 
kept the whole Roman army from coming to the 
river. It was killed at last by large stones slung 
from military engines, and then exhibited a sight 
more terrible to the Roman cohorts and legions, 
than even Carthage itself. Pliny says that the skin, 
which was sent to Rome and deposited, together 
with the jaw-bone, in one of the temples, was to be 
seen till the time of the Numantine war. 
The boa is not confined to Africa, but is likewise 
a native of India and South America, where its 
amazing strength is acknowledged ; and well at- 
tested facts have proved it capable of engorging an 
animal much larger than itself : thus, we are told 
of goats, deer, and even cattle, which have been 
swallowed by this creature, who previously crushes 
their bones with its body. The accounts of tra- 
vellers who have penetrated the torrid regions, where 
