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Show 1894.] OPHIDIA OF TRINIDAD, B. W. I. 503 in such situations, those thus caught averaging 6 or 7 feet. Individuals vary considerably in the animals they prefer for food. One which wre had from the time it was a baby (having the umbilical still attached) was brought up on mice and now eats rats with avidity, but will also eat opossums, snipes, and pigeons. After a meal of the latter he is loath to take rats when feeding-time comes round again. H e would not eat a guinea-pig repeatedly offered to him at loug intervals. Another fed readily upon two rats soon after it was caught, and a month later on a guinea-pig. A third, after a fast of 5 months and 20 clays, during which he refused rats and guinea-pigs, ate a couple of pigeons. A large Boa fed on fowls and pigeons, and on one occasion ate an old fowl weighing 6 lbs. These snakes are essentially night animals, being very sleepy in the daytime; but it is questionable whether they are great travellers, one which escaped from an open shed being caught 12 days afterwards disappearing under the floor of the same building only a few yards distant from the box in which it had been confined. Another one after an absence of two months was similarly recovered. If well fed wheu young, Boas change their skins about every six weeks. A Boa we have watched for some three years changes its skin at intervals varying from five to seven weeks, during which periods it devours six or seven rats. In their wild state Boas are found in damp localities, but not in swamps. In the woods at Mayaro hunters frequently have had their dogs caught by them, and Boas have been killed with youug deer, Cariacus mmorivagas, and Ocelots in their stomachs. Their droppings contain evidences of the fact that they feed largely on agouti. In captivity they will frequently devour dead rats and other animals, but this is rather the exception than the rule. They all seem to have an aversion to the domestic cat. These snakes differ considerably in their general coloration, but the marking is always very much the same. The ground-colour varies from deep brown to light grey. This difference is probably owing to the various localities from which they come. In Trinidad these snakes couple in February and March-sometimes earlier. Like all the snakes belonging to the Boidae, Boas have anal hooks, which are much more largely developed iu some individuals than in others, probably owing to a difference in sex. Boas have been described as using these hooks in climbing trees. Although we have watched them carefully, we have never discovered them making the slightest use of their hooks for the purposes of arboreal locomotion, and their small size would appear to point to the impracticability for such a purpose. These claws, however, ar,e capable of being slightly protruded and are endowed with considerable mobility. When about to couple, the male extends these hooks at right angles to the body and vibrates them in an extremely rapid manner, scratching, as he does so, the back and sides of his companion. The claws scratching the scales of his mate make a noise which can be distinctly beard two yards off. This habit has also been observed in Epicrates cenchris. Young |
