Note 52 — CHAP. XIV.
Reading edition
In some of the low swampy tracts large serpents are not uncommon. At Tejueo I was shown the skin of a young one, of the Boa Constrictor genus. It was twenty-four feet in length, and about twenty inches in circumference. These formidable reptiles have been killed forty feet long! The strength of such a serpent is not easily to be imagined; they have an undulating motion, and carry their head erect four or five feet from the ground; their jaws, &c. are capable of inconceivable dilatation.