Diodôros gives the length of the serpents at sixteen cubits, or about twenty-four feet. Ailianos also gives this as their length. He says (xvii. 2): “Kleitarchos states that about India a serpent sixteen cubits long is produced, but mentions there is another kind which differs in appearance from the rest. They are many sizes shorter, and display to the eye a variety of colours, as if they were painted with pigments. Stripes extend from the head to the tail, and are of various colours, some tinted like bronze, some like silver, some like gold, while others are crimson. The same writer notices that their bite proves very quickly fatal.” Arrian in his _Indika_ (c. 15) states on the authority of Nearchos that there are serpents in India spotted and nimble in their movements, and that one was caught which measured about sixteen cubits, though the Indians alleged that the largest snakes were much larger. Nearchos adds that Alexander summoned to his camp all the Indians most expert in the healing art, and that these succeeded in curing snake-bites, to find a remedy for which quite baffled the skill of all the Greek physicians. Strabo relates (XV. i. 28), that Abisaros, as the ambassadors he sent to Alexander reported, kept two serpents, one of 80 cubits, and the other, according to Onesikritos, of 140 cubits in length; but Strabo no more believed in this land-serpent than we do in the sea-serpent, for he adds that Onesikritos might as well be called the master-fabulist as the master-pilot of Alexander. He afterwards says that Aristoboulos saw a snake nine cubits and a span long, and that he himself while in Egypt had seen another of the same length which had been brought from India. Megasthenes wrote that serpents in India grow to such a size that they swallow deer and oxen whole. He referred no doubt to the python. The python of the Sunderbuns about the mouths of the Ganges are known to swallow deer whole. The Elzevir editor of Curtius cites statements about the size of Indian serpents which leave the extravagant estimate of Onesikritos far behind. Thus Maximus Tyrius (_Dissert._ 38) says: “Taxiles showed Alexander various wonders, and among these was a very large animal sacred to Bacchus, to which the Indians every day immolated victims. This animal was a serpent (_draco_), of such a size that it equalled five acres of land.” NOTE A_A_.—INDIAN PEACOCKS