[Illustration: The Boa Constrictor about to strike a Rabbit.]
One of the most interesting objects in the fine collection of animals at
the Surrey Zoological Gardens, is the Boa Constrictor. Curled up in a
large box, through the upper grating of which it may be conveniently
examined, this enormous reptile lies for weeks in a quiet and almost
torpid state. The capacity which this class of animals possess of
requiring food only at very long intervals, accounts for the inactive
condition in which they principally live; but when the feeling of hunger
becomes strong they rouse themselves from their long repose, and the
voracity of their appetite is then as remarkable as their previous
indifference. In a state of confinement the boa takes food at intervals
of a month or six weeks; but he then swallows an entire rabbit or fowl,
which is put in his cage. The artist who made the drawing for the above
wood-cut, saw the boa at the Surrey Zoological Gardens precisely in the
attitude which he has represented. The time having arrived when he was
expected to require food, a live rabbit was put into his box. The poor
little quadruped remained uninjured for several days, till he became
familiar with his terrible enemy. On a sudden, while the artist was
observing the ill-sorted pair, the reptile suddenly rose up, and,
opening his fearful jaws, made a stroke at the rabbit, who was climbing
up the end of the box; but, as if his appetite was not sufficiently
eager, he suddenly drew back, when within an inch of his prey, and sunk
into his wonted lethargy. The rabbit, unconscious of the danger, which
was passed for a short season, began to play about the scaly folds of
his companion; but the keeper said that his respite would be brief, and
that he would be swallowed the next day without any qualms.
All the tribe of serpents are sustained by animal food. The smaller
species devour insects, lizards, frogs, and snails; but the larger
species, and especially the boa, not unfrequently attack very large
quadrupeds. In seizing upon so small a victim as a rabbit, the boa
constrictor would swallow it without much difficulty; because the
peculiar construction of the mouth and throat of this species enables
them to expand so as to receive within them animals of much larger bulk
than the ordinary diameter of their own bodies. But in those cases where
the serpent attacks a large quadruped, such as an antelope, he entwines
himself round his prey, and by his great muscular power crushes the
principal bones, so that the dimensions of the victim are considerably
reduced, and after a series of efforts which sometimes approach to
strangulation, the monster makes an end of his meal. There are stories
of the boa constrictor destroying even the buffalo and the tiger, by
crushing them in this manner by the astonishing force of its muscles. We
shall confine ourselves at present to a well-authenticated account of
the voracious appetite of a serpent of this species, which was brought
from Batavia, in the year 1817, on board a vessel which conveyed Lord
Amherst and his suite to England.
This serpent was of large dimensions, though not of the very largest. A
living goat was placed in his cage. He viewed his prey for a few
seconds, felt it with his tongue, and then, withdrawing his head, darted
at the throat. But the goat, displaying a courage worthy of a better
fate, received the monster on his horns. The serpent retreated, to
return to the combat with more deadly certainty. He seized the goat by
the leg, pulled it violently down, and twisted himself with astonishing
rapidity round the body, throwing his principal weight upon the neck.
The goat was so overpowered that he could not even struggle for escape.
For some minutes after his victim was dead the serpent did not change
his posture. At length he gradually slackened his grasp, and having
entirely disengaged himself, he prepared to swallow the lifeless body.
Feeling it about with his mouth, he began to draw the head into his
throat; but the horns, which were four inches in length, rendered the
gorging of the head a difficult task. In about two hours the whole body
had disappeared. During the continuance of this extraordinary exertion
the appearance of the serpent was hideous; he seemed to be suffering
strangulation; his cheeks looked as if they were bursting; and the horns
appeared ready to protrude through the monster’s scales. After he had
accomplished his task, the boa measured double his ordinary diameter. He
did not move from his posture for several days, and no irritation could
rouse him from his torpor.
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THE LABOURERS OF EUROPE.--No. 3.
In the province of Naples, or “Campania the blest,” as it is called,
from the great fertility of its soil and its genial climate, the farms
are generally small. The corn returns eight or ten for one, and the land
is not left fallow occasionally for a year, but ploughed and sown with
something else. Frequently after harvest it is immediately sown with the
scarlet trefoil, which, when in flower, looks like a crimson carpet
spread over the verdant field. Rows of elms and mulberry trees,
festooned with branches of the vine, divide the various possessions;
while the fig, the lemon, and the orange, grow in the gardens freely and
to their full size. The high ridges of the mountains afford rich
pastures, safe from the heat and drought of the plains; the sides are
covered with forests of chesnut trees, which afford an important article
of food to the poor; while the lower declivities are occupied by olive
plantations yielding a valuable and easy harvest. In this favoured
region the inhabitants, indolent as they are, can easily procure their
daily subsistence. Their cabins exhibit in many instances the appearance
of slovenliness, but seldom that of indigence. The farmer’s rent is paid
sometimes in money, sometimes in kind, such as grain, oil, &c. The
leases are generally renewed from generation to generation. The farmer
is a peasant, with no capital; he works his farm chiefly with the
assistance of his family. These people have some domestic comforts, good
beds, coarse, but good linen, a table, a few chairs, and a large chest
for their clothes. They eat with their fingers out of one dish, and all
the family drink out of the same glass. They are hospitable, however, in
their way, but they are coarse and uninformed, having not, like the
Tuscan peasants, an opportunity of intercourse with the educated
classes. Few know how to read or write, or cast accounts; they sometimes
hardly know the name of their landlord. The women dress very showily on
holidays, and they generally have gold ear-rings, necklace and cross.
Daily labourers are paid about two carlins, or eight pence, a day, and
somewhat more at harvest time. But they are engaged only a small part of
the year, and they employ the rest of their time in cutting wood in the
forests, in charcoal making, and other occasional jobs. They offer
themselves as guides to travellers, assuming the absurd appellation of
_Cicerone_; and sometimes, for lack of other employment, they join the
banditti in some expedition just to try their fortune, after which they
return quietly to their native village and resume their rural
occupations. Pot-houses or wine-shops are very numerous, and to these
the idlers resort on holidays, after mass, to play and drink. This was
once a source of frequent quarrels, ending often in bloodshed and
murder. But by the present laws (for the Neapolitan criminal justice has
somewhat improved) the vintner is made answerable for any mischief that
happens in his house, and there is no longer any asylum for criminals,
in consequence of which blows are seldom given. The farmers, however, do
not much frequent the wine-shops; they prefer selling their own wine,
and remaining at home on Sundays to see their children dance the
_tarantella_. Of this dance they are never tired.
The vintage is the season of universal rejoicing. The vines are planted
thick, and allowed to grow luxuriantly, and to spread in high festoons
from tree to tree, forming shady alleys into which the rays of the sun
can hardly penetrate. At vintage time a man first cuts the middle
branches between one tree and another, so as to make a lane for the cart
to go through. The cart is drawn by a fine well-fed ox, and on it is a
large tub; the men carry long narrow ladders, by which they ascend the
trees, and having filled the baskets with grapes, they throw them down
to the women below, who empty the contents into the tub. Jokes and
joyous songs relieve the vintagers’ labours, while the farmer looks on
in silence, watching the progress and calculating the produce of the
_ricolt_. When the tub is full, the ox drags the cart reeling with
grapes to the vats, the fruit is thrown in, and then being pressed under
the feet of a man, the liquor descends into a lower vat, where it
undergoes fermentation. These vats are square, built of brick or
masonry, and uncovered. When the weather is dry the must is left to
ferment five days,--if it should rain, one or two days more. The husks
or dregs are then put into a press with water, and a sort of small wine
is made, which is the common drink of the labourers. Another sort of
wine is made by drawing some of the must or new wine out of the vat
after four-and-twenty hours, and pouring it into canvass bags, which are
suspended over another vat, into which the liquor distils. The wine thus
made is called _lambiccato_; it is sweet and pale, does not keep, and,
though not wholesome, it is agreeable to the taste of the people. They
repeat the process several times in order to clear it and prevent any
further fermentation. They use this wine to mix with the old wine, which
has turned sour or musty. Some wines are also made by boiling a certain
quantity of the must, and then mixing it with the rest: these wines keep
longer. The vine bears fruit two years after it has been planted, and
then continues to produce for sixty years or more.
In the other parts of the kingdom of Naples the condition of the rural
population varies according to the climate, localities, and nature of
the soil. In the mountains of Abruzzo the inhabitants are chiefly
shepherds, who migrate every year with their flocks to the plains of
Puglia. Their families accompany them, and assist them in making various
kinds of cheese from sheep, cow, and buffalo milk, for which they are
renowned. These mountaineers are an honest, frugal, industrious race:
the men dress in sheepskins, and numbers of them are to be seen at
Christmas time about the streets of Naples, playing their bagpipes in
honour of the festivity.
The inhabitants of the large province of Calabria are another peculiar
race. Brave, hardy, and proud, they work but little and live frugally.
Although provisions are cheap, wages are too low to allow the labourers
to buy animal food, cheese, or butter: a Calabrian peasant will make his
dinner of a handful of lupines, a few chestnuts, and two ounces of
bread. When he can afford to drink the common wine, he pays for it from
one penny to two-pence a quart. The inhabitants near the coast live
somewhat better. The Calabrian, however, disdains to beg; he will sooner
rob on the high road.
The Sicilian peasantry, especially in the interior of the island, are
still worse than the Calabrian. The towns and villages swarm with
beggars, and the misery and consequent corruption of the poorer classes
are almost incredible. While the coasts of the island abound with
populous and luxurious towns, one half of whose inhabitants, however,
are in a state of beggary or nearly so, the fertile valleys of the
interior are left in great measure unproductive, the few farmers
thinking only of getting what is absolutely necessary for their
subsistence, and not of multiplying the produce of their lands, for
which they have no market. The total want of roads or means of
communication, the absence of capital, the indolence of the great
proprietors, the injudicious trammels on exportation, and several other
causes, contribute to the total prostration of Sicilian agriculture.
The land-tax in the kingdom of Naples is extremely heavy, amounting to
about one-third of the estimated rent of the estates, whether cultivated
or not.
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COMETS.--No. 2.
Well then--we give up the question as to the danger of our earth
jostling this comet of Biela, at least for the next century; but every
one will admit that comets have a great influence on the temperature,
and often cause dreadful epidemics. Thus say those who love to prophesy
of evil; but we hope the present change of weather (October 5,) when the
comet is many thousand miles nearer than he was during the warm weather
of a few weeks back, will make people doubt a little before they
attribute warm summers and autumns and good vintages, or bad summers and
bad vintages (for comets are messengers both of good and evil,) to these
much-abused and ill-understood wanderers.
We proceed to give a few more remarks, the substance of which may be
found in Littrow:--
It is said that comets raise the temperature at the earth’s surface. In
reply to this assertion, we give a list of those years from 1632 to
1785, which were remarkable for the unusual temperature either of their
winter or their summer, and were likewise distinguished by the
appearance of comets.
Comet years. Temperature. | Comet years. Temperature.
1632† Hot summer. | 1718 Severe winter.
1665 Severe winter. | 1723† Hot summer.
1680 Ditto. | 1729 Severe winter.
1682† Warm winter. | 1737 Hot summer.
1683 Cold summer. | 1744 Severe winter.
1683 Severe winter. | 1748† Hot summer.
1684 Cold summer. | 1764† Warm winter.
1689 Warm winter. | 1766 Severe winter.
1695 Cold summer. | 1769† Warm winter.
1699 Severe winter. | 1771 Severe winter.
1701† Hot summer. | 1774† Hot summer.
1702 Ditto. | 1781† Ditto.
1702 Warm winter. | 1783† Warm winter.
1706 Severe winter. | 1784 Severe winter.
1718† Hot summer. | 1785 Ditto.
Here in one hundred and fifty-three years we have fifteen marked (†), in
which the comet may be supposed to have produced a greater degree of
warmth; while it happens that there are just as many in which it may be
said to have increased the cold. What, then, is the conclusion? Why,
that the comet brings neither heat nor cold, at least none that we can
discover. But there is another way of showing that comets do _not_ bring
warmth, and that if they cause any change at all in the temperature
(which we do not affirm) we have as much right to say they bring cold.
From the register of the temperature kept at the Vienna Observatory,
from the year 1800 to 1828 inclusive, it appears that in seven years,
the average temperature of which exceeded the general average
temperature at Vienna, there were ten comets; in five years, which fell
below the average temperature, there were eight comets; and in six
years, some of which were a little above and others a little below the
average temperature, there were twelve comets. Or this result may be
expressed in the following way:--
Comets.
For every 10 hot years 14
„ 10 cold ditto 16
„ 10, neither hot nor cold, ditto 20
But, after all, it may be said that though comets produce no change in
the temperature that we can estimate, they _may_ cause diseases and
other calamities by acting in some way to us invisible and unknown.
Forster, in his ‘Illustrations of the atmospherical origin of Epidemic
Diseases,’ asserts that since the Christian era the most unhealthy
years, and those most fruitful in all kinds of human calamities, have
been marked by the appearance of great comets, and that on the contrary
no great comet has ever appeared in a healthy year.
If any of our readers feel disposed to believe so bold an assertion, we
beg they will read Littrow’s chapter on this subject, or get some good
friend to read it to them, and we venture to say they will be for ever
cured of all propensity to believe in the marvellous, unless the proofs
are rather stronger than those which Forster produces. Littrow denies
altogether the accuracy of Forster’s tables of the _concurrence_ of
diseases, &c. and comets; but, independent of this, why should a comet
cause a particular disease in one part of the globe and not in another?
or why, when the comet of 1668 appeared, should there be “a great
mortality among the cats” in Westphalia only? and how did it happen that
the Dutch and Flemish cats escaped? But to set the matter at rest,
Littrow takes Forster’s table of diseases just as it is given, and
compares it with Olber’s ‘Catalogue of all the known tracks of Comets,’
and to this he adds the catalogue of comets which Riccioli has collected
out of the older writers. This comparison gives the following among many
other results:--“A. D. 717. There was a three years’ plague in the East,
and 300,000 men died at Constantinople alone.” But unfortunately there
was no comet in this year, nor in any years nearer to this date than 684
and 729. As there was no comet in 717, we ought, according to Mr.
Forster’s reasoning, not to believe that 300,000 men died at
Constantinople; which, for our part, we are as little inclined to give
credit to as to many other marvellous facts of the same kind which the
chronicles register.
To take an example in favour of Mr. Forster;--“A.D. 1200. Plague in
Egypt, in which about 10,000,000 of men died.” The Arabic writer, Ali
ben Rodoan, mentions a comet in this year, the body of which was said to
be three times as large as Venus; we can believe all this but not “the
10,000,000 men.”
We will add another instance, not in favour of Mr. Forster.
“1624. Destructive epidemic for five years through nearly all Europe. In
London 35,000 men died; in Venice 90,000, and Italy lost the fourth part
of its inhabitants,” &c. This _may_ be true, but we believe not that
Italy lost the fourth part of its population; nor, if this calamitous
event did take place, do we believe there were then or are now any means
of ascertaining the loss with such accuracy. But how stand the comets
for this year? Alas! for theories without facts. Between 1618 and 1652
no comets are recorded.
We have spoken of the false fears which the presence of comets sometimes
engender, in a tone which some persons may call by the name of levity.
We have done so, because we believe that such fears, tending to make
people unhappy, are best got rid of by a little good-natured ridicule.
One of the best foundations of happiness is a confidence that the laws
by which the universe is governed, however mysterious and inexplicable,
are intended to sustain and preserve that wondrous mechanism which we so
imperfectly understand, but which we know must proceed from the most
perfect goodness as well as wisdom and power.
The errors which we have noticed regarding comets have in some cases
been the errors of men whose judgments have been led astray by false
assumptions. But there have not been wanting self-constituted
interpreters of the designs of Providence, who have misled the ignorant
by pronouncing comets to be the forerunners, sometimes of pestilence, at
others of war, and at others of political or local occurrences, such as
the Fire of London. Such predictions, like those connected with eclipses
of the sun and moon, cannot be too strongly stigmatized, as proceeding
either from the most presumptuous ignorance, or the most wicked
imposture. It is quite enough for men to aim at an approximation to a
knowledge of the system of the world, without taking upon themselves to
assign supposed causes for the existence of this or that phenomenon--and
those causes often the most frivolous and absurd. True knowledge leads
not to presumption but to humility: and it would be well for those who
take upon themselves to expound, with reference to passing events, the
eternal ways of Providence, as if they were gods, knowing good and evil,
to take example from the modesty of such immortal philosophers as Newton
and Bacon; and, whilst confessing that the little that is known to men
only serves to show the more clearly how much is unknown, to humble
themselves before that great _First Cause_ who made “the sun to rule the
day, the moon and the stars to govern the night,--for his mercy endureth
for ever!”
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