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PYTHON

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Originally appearing in Volume V22, Page 704 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PYTHON , a genus of very large See also:

snakes of the See also:family Boidae (see SNAKES) inhabiting the tropical parts of See also:Africa, See also:Asia and See also:Australia. They differ from, the true boas (q.v.), with which they are often See also:con- founded by carrying a few See also:teeth in the premaxilla, by the See also:double See also:row of subcaudal See also:shields and by the posses- a pair of supraorbital bones. Most of them have pits in some of the upper and See also:lower labial shields. Python reticulatus is the commonest See also:species in Indo-See also:China and the See also:Malay Islands; four upper labial shields on either See also:side are pitted. It is, next to the See also:Anaconda, one of the largest of all snakes, some specimens being known which measured about 30 ft. in length. P. molurus, scarcely smaller, is the python or See also:rock-snake of See also:India and See also:Ceylon. The See also:African species are much smaller, up to 15 ft. in length, e.g. P. sebae of tropical and See also:southern Africa and the beautiful P. regius of See also:West Africa. P. spilotes is the " See also:carpet-snake " of Australia and New See also:Guinea. A small relative of pythons is Loxocemus bicolor of See also:South See also:Mexico, the only New See also:World example. The See also:giant pythons could no doubt overpower and kill by constriction almost any large mammal, since such snakes weighmany hundredweights and possess terrific strength, but the width of their mouth—although marvellously distensible—has, of course, a limit, and this is probably See also:drawn at the See also:size of a See also:goat. Before a python swallows such large See also:prey, its bones are crushed and the See also:body is mangled into the shape of a sausage.

The snake begins with the See also:

head, and a See also:great quantity of saliva is discharged over the body of the victim as it is hooked into the See also:throat by the alternately right and FIG. 2.–Head of Python reticulatus. See also:left forward motions of the distended well-toothed jaws. If for any See also:reason a snake should disgorge its prey, this will be found smothered with slime. Hence the See also:fable that they See also:cover it with saliva before deglutition. Most pythons are rather See also:ill-tempered, differing in this respect from the boas. They are chiefly arboreal, and prefer localities aN~ in the vicinity of See also:water to which mammals and birds, their usual prey, resort. They move, climb and swim with equal facility. The See also:female collects her eggs, sometimes as many as one See also:hundred, into a heap, See also:round which she coils herself, covering them so that her head rests in the centre on the See also:top. In this position the snake remains without See also:food throughout the whole See also:period of See also:incubation, or rather keeping guard, for about two months. (H. F.

End of Article: PYTHON

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PYX (Gr. iruVir, a box or chest)

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