It is probably of the boa constrictor, the emperor, the devin, that Hernandez writes, under the name of Temacuilcahuilia, so called from its powers, the word meaning a fighter with five men. It attacks, he says, those it meets, and overpowers them with such force, that if it once coils itself around their necks it strangles and kills them, unless it bursts itself by the violence of its own efforts; and he states that the only way of avoiding the attack is for the man to manage in such a way as to oppose a tree to the animal's constriction, so that while the serpent supposes itself to be crushing the man, it may be torn asunder by its own act, and so die. We do not ask our readers for their implicit faith in this. He adds, that he has himself seen serpents as thick as a man's thigh, which had been taken young by the Indians and tamed; they were provided with a cask strewn with litter in the place of a cavern, where they lived, and were for the most part quiescent, except at meal-times, when they came forth, and amicably climbed about the couch or shoulders of their master, who placidly bore the serpent's embrace. They often coiled tip in folds, equalling a large sized cartwheel in size, and harmlessly received their food. In most accounts current respecting the mode in which boas and pythons take their food, the snake, after crushing its prey, is described as licking the body with its tongue and lubricating it with its saliva, in order to facilitate the act of deglutition. It has been observed with justice that few worse instruments for such a purpose than the slender dark forked tongue of these snakes could have been contrived: and that, in fact, the saliva does not begin to be poured out abundantly till required to lubricate the jaws and throat of the animal straining to engulph the carcass. We have seen these snakes take their food, but they did not lubricate it, though the vibratory tongue often touched it; we must, therefore, withhold our credence from the common assertion. The size attained by the boa is often very great, and larger individuals than any now seen occurred formerly, before their ancient haunts had been invaded by human colonization. The Anaconda, (_Boa Scytale_), called by Linnaeus, Boa Murina, and by Prince Maximilian, Boa Aquatica, is of an enormous size, from twenty to thirty feet in length.