captured, not without loss of human life, in Egypt, and which was taken to Alexandria; it measured thirty cubits, or about forty-five feet in length. And Suetonius tells us that one was exhibited in front of the Comitium at Rome, which was fifty cubits, or seventy-five feet long.
Perhaps none of these examples were very accurately measured; or if we must suppose that the first was so, we may remark, that the skin of a Serpent, dragged off by rude and unscientific hands, is capable of stretching to an enormous extent; but with every allowance, it is evident that unless we reject the testimony of history, specimens of Serpents were seen in ancient times which very far exceeded any that have fallen under modern, or, at least, scientific observation. Some of the largest on modern record we will briefly recapitulate. The subject of Daniell’s picture is said to have been sixty-two feet; but this is probably exaggerated: the specimen whose capture is narrated in the “Edinburgh Literary Gazette” was “nearly” forty feet; those which M'Leod saw at Whidah must have been thirty-two feet or more; Bontius speaks of some upwards of thirty-six feet; an American Boa is mentioned by Bingley, of the same length, the skin of which was in the cabinet of the Prince of Orange; Shaw speaks of a skin in the British Museum which measured thirty-five feet; and finally, Dr. A. Smith saw a specimen of Python Natalensis, twenty-five feet long, though a portion of the tail was wanting.
We illustrate the genus by a figure of the Tiger Python (Python tigris, Daud.), one of the most beautiful in its markings of the whole
