348 WATURAL HISTORY IN ANECDOTE.

L Terrible Not many years ago, says a writer in ‘‘ Chums,’’
Boa. a boa escaped from a menagerie at Grenoble, and
disappeared without leaving a trace. A few days afterwards a
certain Monsieur Flisson went on a visit to Beauregard along
with a friend, who accompanied him on an excursion among
the romantic hills and rocks in that part of the country. Ata
particularly interesting spot he tarried behind his friend, and,
in order to enjoy the glorious prospect, sat down on what ap-
peared to be a stone covered with soft moss. It was eight
o’clock in the evening, and M. Flisson, though shortsighted,
was a man of prodigious strength. ‘This was lucky for him,
for the stone now began to move under him, stretched itself
out with the elasticity of a spring, and lifted him several feet
from the ground. M. Flisson had sat down on the boa. Be-
fore he had time to recover his presence of mind, he felt him-
self rolling downwards. The serpent had curled his tail round
a tree-trunk, and Flisson held its head firmly grasped between
his hands. A strange and terrible struggle ensued. The boa,
securely fastened to the tree, pulled upwards, and Flisson,
still clinging with herculean strength to the head of the crea-
ture, found himself at last swinging over a precipice of about
seventy feet in depth, as though suspended by a rope. In
this terrible situation he remained ten minutes, until his friend,
with the assistance of a few countrymen, came to his relief.
A Narrow Mr. Byam’s book contains many interesting

Escape. anecdotes of the experiences of travellers of which
the following snake story is one.

‘* Two travellers passed a hillock in a marsh, and heard some
groans proceeding from a man on the top of it. Earnestly
beckoned to approach, they at first hesitated, thinking it might
be a contrivance to entice them into danger. They, however,
went near, and the man told them that, while asleep, a snake
had crept up his loose drawers, and was then lying on his
stomach, and from what he had seen of it, he believed it to be
a Coral-snake, one of the deadliest of the western serpents.