The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal (Volume 3); Exhibiting a View of the Progressive Discoveries and Improvements in the Sciences and the Arts (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Vel was left entirely disengaged, having been killed by suffocation. The snake then raised a few inches of its body from the ground, and passed its head over the dead animal in various ways to assure itself that life had departed; it then took the end of the squirrel's tail, swallowed it gradually, bringing first one, and then the other of the hind legs parallel with it, and sucked with difficulty, and for some time, at them and the rump of the animal, until its jaws became so expanded, that, after this, it swallowed the whole remaining parts with apparent ease. This mass of food was removed several inches from the head in the stomach of the snake, and gave it the appearance of a rouleau of money brought from both ends of a purse towards its centre; for, immediately after the operation of swallowing was completed, the jaws and neck resumed their former appearance. The snake then attempted to move off, but this was next to impossible; when having cut a twig, I went up to it, and tapped it on the head, which it raised, as well as its tail, and began for the first time to rattle. I was satisfied that for some lapse of time it could not remove far, and that the woods being here rather thin, it would soon become the victim of a vulture. I then killed it, and cut it open to see how the squirrel lay within. I had remarked, that, after the process of swallowing was comple.t- ed, singular movements of the whole body had taken place, ? a kind of going to and fro for a while, not unlike the convulsive motions of a sick animal, as a dog for instance, about to vomit . I concluded that some internal and necessary operation was going on. This was proved when I found the squirrel lying perfectly smooth, even as to its hair, from its nose to the tip of its tail. I noted all this on the spot. T...