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that of anger. It kills its prey, by twining its body round 
it, and crushing the bones. 
The following is an instance of one of these monsters 
killing and devouring a buffalo. The serpent had, for 
some time, been waiting near the brink of a pool, in ex- 
pectation of its prey ; when a buffalo was the first animal 
that appeared. Having darted upon the affrighted beast, 
it instantly began to wrap him round with its voluminous 
twistings; and at every twist the bones of the buffalo 
were heard to crack as loud as the report of a gun. It 
was in vain that the animal struggled and bellowed ; its 
enormous enemy entwined it so closely, that at length all 
its bones were crushed to pieces, like those of a malefactor 
on the wheel, and the whole body was reduced to one 
uniform mass: the serpent then untwined its folds in 
order to swallow its prey at leisure. To prepare for this 
and also to make it slip down the throat the more smoothly 
it was seen to lick the whole body over, and thus to cover 
it with a mucilaginous substance. It then began to swal- 
low it, at the end that afforded the least resistance ; and 
in the act of swallowing, the throat suffered so great a 
dilatation, that it took in at once a substance that was 
thrice its own ordinary thickness. 
The Anaconda, (Boa marina,) is larger than the Boa- 
Constrictor, being generally nearly thirty feet long. It is 
also a South American species ; but the Python, which is 
of equal or greater size, is a native of India. 
