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Show 1894.] OPHIDIA O F TRINIDAD, B. W . I. 509 Cribos are therefore invaluable to the cocoa and sugar planters, are always much troubled with rats. Cribos, however, are not averse to young chicken, which they devour in the boldest fashion, in spite of the noisy but impotent demonstrations of their mother. The Cribo moves in bold, graceful, rapid, and continuous curves, and the worst that is said of him by the people of the island is that he is a terror to chicken-otherwise he bears a good character. They are said to be susceptible of kindness, and will even live in the houses of the peasantry if unmolested, when they amply repay this toleration by the relentless war they wage on rats and mice. A Cribo once in our possession struck at a mouse and caught his own tail; this he diligently swallowed, uutil at least one-fourth of his entire length disappeared down his own throat. In this position he looked like the numeral eight (8). After some minutes' consideration he disgorged. These snakes frequently devour their own and other species, aud the country people credit them with killing the formidable Crotalines Lachesis muta aud Bothrops atrox. SPILOTES VARIABILIS. This snake, which is sometimes entirely black, has, as a rule, pale yellow stripes and spots upon the first third of its length, the remaining portions and the tail being of a shining jet-black ; underneath and as far back as where the black begins it is pale yellow, the ventral scales being edged with black. It is more slender in appearance than Coluber corais. Its scales are large and of a pointed oval form aud are slightly keeled. Its teeth are small and it makes a great show of fighting, inflating its neck to treble its ordinary thickness, but, though darting its head at the offender, it seldom bites. Its length is usually 8 or 9 feet, and we have heard of specimens measuring 11. One we had laid nine eggs. They are with difficulty kept in captivity. They feed on frogs and birds; and the following incident related to us by Mr. A. B. Carr of Capard shows they have some claim to be called rat-snakes, though perhaps not such a strong one as the C. corais. One Sunday afternoon, as he was lying in his hammock in a house on a plantation he has formed on the verge of the primeval forest, he saw a Tigre (local name for S. variabilis) come out of the long grass a little way off, cross the pathway, and make for the house. It ascended one of the supports of the roof of the verandah in which he was taking his siesta and disappeared in the palm-leaf thatch. It had not been there long before sundry squeals and rustlings betrayed the fact that the Tigre had good reasons for its visit. The snake had caught and was swallowing a rat. It then descended and made off by tbe way it had come. The Tigre is very rapid in its movements when alarmed, and is frequently to be seen in cocoa estates in the higher branches of the trees. Like Scytale coronatum and Coluber boddaerti, it vibrates its tail wiien alarmed very quickly, making a noise amongst leaves like that produced by the rattle of Crotalus horridus. The Tigre's back is strongly ridged. |
