nd there can, I
think, be little doubt that to its strange and anomalous structure is to
be traced the fable of the transformation of the cobra de capello. The
colour alone would seem to identify the two reptiles, but the head and
mouth are no longer those of a serpent, and the disappearance of the
tail might readily suggest the mutilation which the tradition asserts.

[Illustration: THE UROPELTIS PHILIPPINUS.]

[Footnote 1: PETERS, _De Serpentum familia Uropeltaceorum_. Berol, 4.
1861.]

[Footnote 2: The _Uropeltis grandis_ of Kelaart, which was at first
supposed to be a new species, proves to be identical with _U.
Phillippinus_ of Cuvier. It is doubtful, however, whether this species
be found in the Phillippine Islands, as stated by Cuvier; and it is more
than, probable that the typical specimen came from Ceylon--a further
illustration of the affinity of the fauna of Ceylon to that of the
Eastern Archipelago. The characteristics of this reptile, as given by
Dr. GRAY, are as follows:--"Caudal disc subcircular, with large
scattered tubercles; snout subacute, slightly produced. Dark brown,
lighter below, with some of the scales dark brown in the centre near the
posterior edge. GRAY, _Proceed. Zool. Soc._ 1858, p. 262.]

The Singhalese Buddhists, in their religious abstinence from inflicting
death on any creature, are accustomed, after securing a venomous snake,
to enclose it in a basket woven of palm leaves, and to set it afloat on
a river.

_The Python._--The great python[1] (the "boa," as it is commonly
designated by Europeans, the "anaconda" of Eastern story), which is
supposed to crush the bones of an elephant, and to swallow the tiger, is
found, though not of such portentous dimensions, in the cinnamon gardens
within a mile of the fort of Colombo, where it feeds on hog-deer, and
other smaller animals.

[Footnote 1: Python reticulatus, _Gray_.]

The natives occasionally take it alive, and securing it to a pole expose
it for sale as a curiosity. One that was brought to me tied in this way
measured seventeen feet with a proportionate thickness: but one more
fully grown, which crossed my path on a coffee estate on the Peacock
Mountain at Pusilawa, considerably exceeded these dimensions. Another
which I watched in the garden at Elie House, near Colombo, surprised me
by the ease with which it erected itself almost perpendicularly in order
to scale a wall upwards of ten feet high.

The Singhalese assert that when