Page:Natural History, Reptiles.djvu/171

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BOAS.
163

mains indubitable to excite deserved astonishment, and to prove that both in size and strength these colossal Serpents are among the giants of the animal world.

The characters of the Family are few, but readily discriminated; the jaws, by a mechanism

UPPER JAW AND PALATE OF PYTHON.

already explained, are capable of enormous dilatation; the upper and the lower jaw are furnished

SKULL OF PYTHON.

with numerous curved and pointed teeth, nearly equal in length, all pointing backwards, and in