Contests with Large Snakes


The family of snakes called Boidae, including the Boas and Pythons are
huge snakes confined to the hotter regions of the globe, and
formidable from their vast strength and mode of attack. They lurk in
ambush and dart upon their victim, which in an instant is seized and
enveloped in their folds, and crushed to death or strangled. For their
predatory habits they are admirably adapted; their teeth are terrible,
and produce a dreadful wound; the neck is slender, the body increasing
gradually to about the middle in diameter, and then decreasing. The
tail is a grasping instrument, strongly prehensile, and aided by two
hooklike claws, sheathed with horn, externally visible on each side,
beneath, just anterior to the base of the tail. Though externally
nothing beyond these spurs appear, internally is found a series of
bones, representing those of the hinder limbs, but of course
imperfectly developed; yet they are acted upon by powerful muscles,
and can be so used as to form a sort of antagonist to the tail while
grasping any object; they thus become a fulcrum giving additional
force to the grasp, which secured thereby to a fixed point, giving
double power to the animal's energy.

The emperor boa, or boa constrictor as well as all the others to which
the name boa applies are, according to Cuvier, natives of America. The
engraving represents one of these terrible snakes in the act of
strangling a deer.

The Aboma (_Boa cenchrea_) has scaly plates on the muzzle, and pits or
dimples upon the plates of the jaws.