MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES, CONTRIBUTIONS AND 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
The following facts, as illustrative of the great extensibility of 
membrane and muscle in the Serpent tribe, may prove interesting 
to some of your readers, as a sort of light desert after the more 
hearty meal of your regular and systematic papers. 
On the 14th. ultimo a Boa constrictor was sent for my inspec¬ 
tion, which had that morning swallowed a pig belonging to some Chi¬ 
nese at Sungi Kranjie. It would appear that the snake had been seen 
lurking about the stye several days previous to his last meal which 
cost him so dear; he artfully however escaped the owner of the 
swine, who had ineffectually attempted his capture or destruction on 
these occasions ; but on the morning in question, the Boa succeeded 
in getting entrance into the stye, and, having helped himself to a 
Porker, found himself in the dilemma of the Weasel in the Barn,—he 
could not get out again. The owner came upon him in this state of 
helplessness, and, having called comrades to his assistance, secured the 
victim, torpid from his voracious exertions, and brought him in tii- 
mnph into Town. 
Now you will say there is nothing' novel in ad this, nevertheless 
the disparity of size between the carcase of the pig and the jaws and 
body of the snake struck me so forcibly, and appeared so extraordi¬ 
nary, that I forthwith proceeded to ascertain the exact relative pro¬ 
portions, and found them as follow. The snake was twelve feet, nine 
inches long, transerve diameter of jaw inside three and a half inches, 
neck round nine inches, greatest girth of body at thickest part, when 
pig was out, eleven and a half inches. The pig weighed thirty se¬ 
ven catties and a half, or rather more than fifty pounds, was a good 
three fourths grown young sow, and lay apparently without a nianv 
of violence upon its body, not a hair ruffled, legs unbroken ; indeed 
old Isaac Walton never dealt more tenderly with his frog than the 
Boa had seemingly done with young Piggy* Upon closer examina¬ 
tion it was however discovered that the ribs were broken, but as the 
Vol TI. No. IF. Feb. 1848. 
