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.