elongated scaly bodies, and their total deprivation of external members,
to require any minute description of their organization. They are also
held by the generality of mankind in so much abhorrence, and regarded
for the most part with such strong feelings of unmitigated disgust, that
we feel but little inclined to dwell upon their history, how much soever
they may on many accounts be considered as deserving of a more extended
notice.
They are frequently divided into two great sections; the one, which is by
far the most numerous, comprehending all those in which the poison-fangs
are wanting, and which are consequently dangerous only in proportion to
the extent of their muscular force; and the other consisting of those
in which the fangs are present, and the bite of which is accompanied
with the pouring out of a venomous secretion. At the head of the first
of these divisions rank the Boas, which in the Linnean arrangement
comprehended all those snakes, whether venomous or not, whose under
surface was covered with narrow transverse plates, and whose tail was
destitute of rattle. Later zoologists have, however, confined that
appellation to those among the Linnean Boas, which are without poisonous
fangs and have claws near the vent, and have regarded as a distinct genus
the snakes which in addition to these latter characters have the scales
of the under surface of the tail so arranged as to form two distinct
rows. To the latter, which inhabit the Old Continent exclusively (while
the former are all of them natives of America), they have assigned the
name of Python.
The present species, which is commonly exhibited under the popular but
erroneous title of the Boa Constrictor, appears to be the Pedda Poda of
Dr. Russell’s Indian Serpents. It is said by that writer to attain a
length of eight or ten feet; but living specimens have been brought to
this country of twice that size, and some of those now in the Tower are
fifteen or sixteen feet long. The number of transverse plates on the
under surface of the body is stated to be two hundred and fifty-two,
and that of the pairs of scales beneath the tail sixty-two. The back is
elegantly marked with a series of large irregular brown blotches bordered
with black; and numerous smaller spots are scattered along the sides.
The ground colour is yellowish brown, lighter beneath.
The extent of muscular power which these serpents possess in common
with the Boas is truly wonderful. To the smaller among them the lesser
quadrupeds and even birds fall an easy prey; but the larger, when excited
by the stimulus of hunger, are capable of crushing within their spiral
folds the largest and most powerful of beasts. The sturdy buffalo and the
agile stag become alike the victims of their fatal embrace; and the bulk
of these animals presents but little obstacle to their being swallowed
entire by the tremendous reptile, which crushes them as it were into a
mass, lubricates them with the fetid mucus secreted in its stomach, and
then slowly distending its jaws and œsophagus to an extent proportioned
to the magnitude of the object to be devoured, and frequently exceeding
by many times its own previous size, swallows it by one gradual and
long-continued effort.
Of the mode in which this operation is effected, a detailed description
is contained in Macleod’s Voyage of His Majesty’s Ship Alceste; and an
excellent account has been subsequently given by Mr. Broderip in the
second volume of the Zoological Journal from actual observation of the
specimens now in the Tower. The vivid description of the latter almost
brings before the reader’s eye the lightning dash of the serpent; the
single scream of its instantly enfolded victim, whose heaving flanks
proclaimed that it still breathed; and its last desperate effort,
succeeded by the application of another and a deadly coil. With equal
force and fidelity it sketches the continuation of the scene, when the
serpent, after slowly disengaging his folds, placed his head opposite
to that of his victim, coiled himself once more around it to compress it
into the narrowest possible compass, and then gradually propelled it into
his separated jaws and dilated throat; and finally presents a disgusting
picture of the snake when his meal was at an end, with his loose and
apparently dislocated jaws dropping with the superfluous mucus which had
been poured forth.
The individual figured at the head of the present article is a female;
a fact which was proved by the remarkable circumstance of her producing
in May last, after having been more than two years in the Menagerie, a
cluster of eggs, fourteen or fifteen in number, none of which, however,
were hatched, although the mother evinced the greatest anxiety for
their preservation, coiling herself around them in the form of a cone,
of which her head formed the summit, and guarding them from external
injury with truly maternal solicitude. They were visible only when she
was occasionally roused; in which case she raised her head, which formed
as it were the cover of the receptacle in which they were enclosed, but
replaced it again as quickly as possible, allowing to the spectator only
a momentary glance at her cherished treasures.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE ANACONDA.
_PYTHON TIGRIS_, Var.
The Anaconda is a name which, like that of the Boa Constrictor, has been
popularly applied to all the larger and more powerful snakes. It appears
to be of Ceylonese origin, and may therefore belong of right, as well as
of usage, to the present Indian species. The serpent which passes under
this title at the Tower, and which is figured above, seems to differ in
no essential respects from the Boa of the preceding article, the only
appreciable distinctions between them consisting in the lighter colour,
the greater comparative size of the head, and the acuteness of the tail
of that which at present engages our attention.
Happily the appetite of these gigantic snakes bears no proportion to
their means of gratifying it, as a full meal is uniformly succeeded by
a state of torpor, which frequently lasts for a month or six weeks, or,
during the cold season, even for a longer period. Those in the Tower,
which are kept in a state of artificial warmth, usually feed about every
five or six weeks, and a fowl or a rabbit generally suffices for a meal.
These are held by the keeper within view of the serpent to ascertain
whether he is inclined to take his prey or not. About three years ago
Mr. Cops, while thus engaged in offering a fowl to one of the Boas,
had nearly met with a serious accident; the snake, which was almost
blind from the approaching change of its skin, missing the fowl, and
seizing upon the keeper’s thumb instead, around which and its own head
it instantaneously threw two coils, and then, as if surprised at the
unexpected resistance, cast an additional fold round his neck, and fixed
itself by its tail to one of the posts of its cage in such a manner as
nearly to throttle him. His own exertions, however, aided by those of the
under keepers, at length disengaged him from his perilous situation; but
so determined was the attack of the snake that it could not be compelled
to relinquish its hold until two of its teeth had been broken off and
left in the thumb.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE RATTLESNAKE.
_CROTALUS HORRIDUS._ LINN.
If the Boas furnish the most terrible examples of the tremendous powers
of destruction possessed by a few of that division of the Serpent tribe,
whose bite is unattended with the effusion of venom, the Rattlesnakes
afford a no less remarkable instance of the dreadful malignity of the
poison with which others of the tribe are so abundantly supplied. This
poison is secreted by a gland of considerable size situated beneath the
eye, the excretory duct of which terminates on each side at the base
of a long and tubular fang in the upper jaw, which is concealed while
the animal is at rest in a fold of the gum, but is capable of being
instantaneously erected when he is irritated, and affords at the same
time the means of inflicting the wound and of insinuating into it the
deadly fluid with which it is charged. In the Rattlesnakes these two
fangs are the only visible teeth implanted in the upper jaw; but behind
each of them are several rudiments of others by which they are from time
to time replaced. Their other distinguishing characters consist in the
whole of the transverse plates which cover the under surface of the body
and of the tail being simple, and in the singular apparatus by which
the latter is terminated, and which is formed of a series, more or less
numerous according to the age of the individual, of flattened rings
loosely attached one within the other in such a manner as to produce
a peculiar rattling sound when the tail is moved with any degree of
quickness. The number of rings commonly varies from five to twelve; but
in very old specimens it is said to have been found to exceed forty.
All the known species are natives of America, in the vast forests of
which they may be said literally to swarm; but happily, like most of the
other venomous snakes, they never exert their terrible qualities upon man
except in self-defence, and the warning rattle is always heard to give
notice of their approach. Their bite is almost uniformly fatal even to
the largest animals, and the latter frequently evince such an instinctive
dread of them, that, according to M. Bosc, it is almost impossible to
compel a horse or a dog to advance towards them. Their food consists
principally of the smaller quadrupeds, such as squirrels and rabbits, of
other reptiles, and of birds, although they rarely climb trees in pursuit
of their prey. It was long believed, and the notion is still popularly
current, that they possessed the power of fascinating their victims,
which were thought to be so completely under the influence of their
glance as to precipitate themselves of their own accord into the open
throat of their enemy; but the truth appears to be that they actually
inspire so great a degree of terror that the animals selected for their
attacks are commonly rendered incapable of offering such resistance as
might otherwise be in their power, or even of attempting to escape from
their pursuit.
Like most reptiles they retire during the winter into holes, in which
they remain in a torpid state until the return of spring; and during this
period they may be taken or destroyed without danger. Their flesh is
eaten by the negroes, who also apply their fat, as well as their rattles,
to various medicinal or superstitious uses.
The number at present in the Tower exceeds a hundred, varying from four
to six feet in length, and differing very considerably from each other
both in colour and markings.
[Illustration]
CHISWICK:
PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITTINGHAM,
COLLEGE HOUSE.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Tower Menagerie, by Edward Turner Bennett