Page:Natural History, Reptiles.djvu/177

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BOAS.
169

And easily could he have overtopped
Goliath’s helmed head, or that huge king
Of Basan, hugest of the Anakim:
What then was human strength if once involved
Within those dreadful coils?… The multitude

Fell prone and worshipped.”[1]

The Boadæ are found in the continents and great islands of the torrid zone; the true Boas, distinguished by having the plates beneath the tail arranged in a single series, are confined to the western hemisphere, but the great Serpents

BOA CONSTRICTOR.

exhibited in our menageries, under the loosely-applied term Boa constrictor, are for the most part species of the genus Python, which is found only

  1. “Madoc,” book vii.