Most of the Snakes feed on living animals, only a few on birds' eggs. Several kinds of them prey habitually on other Snakes, as the genera _Hamadryas_, _Bungarus_, and _Elaps_, even _Psammophis_ occasionally; and there are rare instances of non-Venemous Snakes preying upon poisonous ones. The Venemous kinds first kill their victim by poisoning it; various others by smothering it between the coils of their body. As they do not possess organs for tearing the prey to pieces, nor a dentition fit for mastication, the prey is swallowed entire; and in consequence of the great width of the mouth, and of the extraordinary extensibility of the skin of the gullet, they are able to swallow animals of which the girth much exceeds their own. The Sea Snakes prey mostly upon fishes, and the ordinary Water Snakes (_Homolopsidæ_, &c.) on frogs and other Batrachians. Certain swallowers of birds' eggs have peculiar spinous processes proceeding from the vertebræ of the neck, the object of which is to fracture the shell of an egg during the process of deglutition. Most of the Ophidian Reptiles are oviparous, but many are ovo-viviparous. The Pythons alone (so far as ascertained) perform a sort of incubation, which has been repeatedly observed of captive specimens of these huge Serpents. Many Snakes are remarkable for their great beauty of colouring, or of the pattern of their markings; but on account of the poisonous property of so many of them, the whole order is popularly regarded with horror and apprehension, and the most foolish tales are current respecting various species of them. Thus many people suppose that there are Snakes which rob cows of their milk; and the skeleton of a child being found in the same hollow with a number of harmless Snakes (the North American _Coryphodon constrictor_), it was concluded, as a matter of course, that the Serpents must have both killed the child and stripped off its flesh, which latter is what no Snake could possibly do. People are prone to exaggerate, and commonly evince a fondness for the marvellous, which induce those of hot countries more especially, where the species of Ophidians are numerous, to declare every Snake met with as usually the most Venemous one in their country; and thus travellers often come away with exceedingly erroneous impressions on the subject. The Indian region surpasses every other part of the globe in the number and variety of its Ophidians, and almost every investigation of a limited but previously unexplored district, is tolerably sure to add largely to our previous knowledge of them. What, however, the late Sir J. Emerson Tennent asserts of those inhabiting Ceylon, is equally applicable to other parts of the Indian region. "During my residence in Ceylon," he remarks, "I never heard of the death of an European which was caused by the bite of a Snake; and in the returns of coroners' inquests made officially to my department, such accidents to the natives appear chiefly to have