_Snakes._--Snakes are, fortunately, not so abundant or so obtrusive as lizards, or the tropics would be scarcely habitable. At first, indeed, the traveller is disposed to wonder that he does not see more of them, but he will soon find out that there are plenty; and, if he is possessed by the usual horror or dislike of them, he may think there are too many. In the equatorial zone snakes are less troublesome than in the drier parts of the tropics, although they are probably more numerous and more varied. This is because the country is naturally a vast forest, and the snakes being all adapted to a forest life do not as a rule frequent gardens and come into houses as in India and Australia, where they are accustomed to open and rocky places. One cannot traverse the forest, however, without soon coming upon them. The slender green whip-snakes glide among the bushes, and may often be touched before they are seen. The ease and rapidity with which these snakes pass through bushes, almost without disturbing a leaf, is very curious. More dangerous are the green vipers, which lie coiled motionless upon foliage, where their colour renders it difficult to see them. The writer has often come upon them while creeping through the jungle after birds or insects, and has sometimes only had time to draw back when they were within a few inches of his face. It is startling in walking along a forest path to see a long snake glide away from just where you were going to set down your foot; but it is perhaps even more alarming to hear a long-drawn heavy slur-r-r, and just to catch a glimpse of a serpent as thick as your leg and an unknown number of feet in length, showing that you must have passed unheeding within a short distance of where it was lying. The smaller pythons are not however dangerous, and they often enter houses to catch and feed upon the rats, and are rather liked by the natives. You will sometimes be told, when sleeping in a native house, that there is a large snake in the roof, and that you need not be disturbed in case you should hear it hunting after its prey. These serpents no doubt sometimes grow to an enormous size, but such monsters are rare. In Borneo, Mr. St. John states that he measured one twenty-six feet long, probably the largest ever measured by a European in the East. The great water-boa of South America is believed to reach the largest size. Mr. Bates measured skins twenty-one feet long, but the largest ever met with by a European appears to be that described by the botanist, Dr. Gardner, in his _Travels in Brazil_. It had devoured a horse, and was found dead, entangled in the branches of a tree overhanging a river, into which it had been carried by a flood. It was nearly forty feet long. These creatures are said to seize and devour full-sized cattle on the Rio Branco; and from what is known of their habits this is by no means improbable.