322 
ST. Ann’s. 
Snakes. It is in such places alone that I have met 
with them in a state of repose.” 
A few days after this, Sam found a Boa lying in a 
nest of trash, made between the spurs of a fig-tree 
on Bluefields Mountain ; the nest partly covered by 
some wood. The Serpent was coiled up, but there 
were no eggs. 
The interesting circumstance of the Python bivit- 
tatus incubating its eggs, which took place in the 
menagerie of the Museum of Paris *, is thus shown 
to be characteristic of the family ; the habit being 
common to the American and Indian species of the 
Boad(R. For the fact that the foetus, in the case 
which I have recorded above, was fully formed, and 
capable of motion when extracted, sufficiently proves 
that some time had elapsed since the deposition of 
the eggs, while the exit of the Boa from the nest, 
which led to the discovery, shows that the parent was 
still fulfilling the duties of incubation. 
Other persons have assured me that often, on killing 
a female Yellow Snake, they find the young in her 
belly. And this is curiously confirmed by a note from 
Mr. Hill, who thus writes me : “ The Honourable 
Thomas James Bernard, Member of the Council, has 
related to me a very curious fact of the Yellow 
Snake. Lately, his labourers in the Pedro Mountain 
district, St. Ann’s, killed a Yellow Snake containing 
some ten or twelve grown young ones, varying from 
eight to ten inches in length. The negroes ex- 
pressed their surprise at this circumstance, because 
* Ann. des Sci. Nat (2nd ser.) xvi. 65. 
