CONVOLUTED SERPENTS. 
319 
It is in addition a very tedious one ; the skin adhe- 
ring to the muscles with great tenacity, and needing 
to be detached with a knife or scalpel, the operator 
working round and round. 
It is currently reported that when the Yellow Boa 
pairs, which is in spring, others of the same species 
approach, and twist themselves with and over the 
pair, until an immense knot or entwined mass is 
formed. Knots composed of many individuals are 
certainly often found, and killed without difficulty, 
as they are then very inert. Mr. Hill, of Spanish- 
town, once saw five Boas lying together dead on the 
road, which he was informed had been killed when 
entwined under such circumstances. This knotting 
is called by the negroes cooting,” perhaps from the 
Spanish coiio. A black man, near Bluefields, going 
to his daily labour, found a large number thus con- 
torted, and went on killing one after another, until 
the fetor proceeding from them made him quite faint, 
and compelled him to turn back homeward. 
It is possible that the vast convoluted host of Ser- 
pents seen by Humboldt in the Savannahs of Izacubo 
in Guiana may have had a similar origin : the motive 
which he suggests seems scarcely consistent with the 
known habits of those reptiles.* 
* Dr. Bancroft mentions this habit of congregating in twisted 
heaps, with some variation. “ I shall also mention on the authority 
of some planters of credit, that a number of Yellow Snakes, as ten or 
twelve, are not unfrequently met with in the woody parts of the 
island with their tails twisted together, but the rest of their bodies 
free. This chiefly occurs about April and May, at their breeding 
season as is supposed. When thus surprised, they will raise their 
tails, and hiss, and it takes them some time before they can unwind 
