With its ill-favoured head protruding above the surface of the water
near the banks of slow-flowing rivers, pools, and swamps, the vast
anaconda lies in wait for its prey. The fish swimming along in its
neighbourhood,--the birds which, rising from the reeds, skim by
overhead,--the animals which come to the banks to drink,--even man
himself, have cause to dread a blow from the snout, and the powerful
coils of the huge water-serpent. Its appearance is most hideous, being
very broad in the middle, and tapering abruptly at both ends. Fish, and
the smaller animals, it swallows whole; but a larger animal it seizes by
the nose with its powerful jaws, and surrounds with the mighty coils of
its huge body, pressing one coil upon another till it crushes its prey
to death.
Though generally found from twenty to thirty feet in length, it is said
to attain a length of forty feet; and one of that size is fully capable
of swallowing an ox or horse,--there being many instances of its having
been done. Its voracity is prodigious. The French naturalist Firmin
found in the stomach of an anaconda a large sloth, an iguana four feet
long, and a good-sized ant-bear; all three in the same state almost as
when they were swallowed--a proof that they had been captured within a
short time. Bates relates that an Indian father with his son went one
day in their montario to gather fruit a short distance from Egga, when,
landing on a sloping, sandy shore, the boy was left to take care of the
canoe while the man entered the forest. The boy was playing in the
water under the shade of some myrtle and wild guava trees, when a huge
reptile stealthily wound its coils round him. His cries brought the
father to the rescue, who, rushing forward, seized the anaconda boldly
by the head, and tore its jaws asunder.
This formidable serpent lives to a great age; and Bates heard of a
specimen being killed which measured forty-two feet in length. Those he
measured were only twenty-one feet long, and two feet in girth. He was
a sufferer, on one occasion, from one of these. While on a voyage up
the river, his canoe being moored alongside the bank, the neighbourhood
of which had been haunted for some time past by one of the creatures, he
was awoke a little after midnight, as he lay in his cabin, by a heavy
blow struck at the side of the canoe, close to his head. It was
succeeded by the sound of a heavy body plunging into the water. When he
got up all was again quiet, except the cackle of fowls in the hen-coop,
which hung at the side of the vessel, about three feet from the cabin
door. In the morning the poultry were found loose about the canoe, two
of the fowls being missing; while there was a large rent in the bottom
of the hen-coop, raised about two feet from the surface of the water.
The Indians went in search of the reptile, which, being found sunning
itself on a log at the mouth of a muddy rivulet, was despatched with
harpoons.
It is extremely tenacious of life; and though the head may be nearly cut
off, and the entrails taken out, it will still move about for a
considerable time. It is detested by the farmers on the banks, as it
has the habit of carrying off poultry, young calves, or any animal it
can get within reach of. It is often seen coiled up in the corner of
farm-yards, waiting for its prey.
The statement that the anaconda kills its prey by its pestilent breath,
is wholly fabulous. Waterton altogether denies the existence of any
odour in the snake's breath. It is possible, however, that some species
may produce a horrible stench, from a substance secreted in certain
glands near the tail--a fact which has probably given rise to the fable.