Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/783

 BOA BOAR 763 istence. Their long, keen teeth are curved strongly backward, each tooth in either jaw fitting between the interstices of two in the Bos Constrictor. other, clasping whatever they seize upon inex- tricably. The body is readily wound about the victim in huge knots, compressed closer and closer until life is extinct. Mr. McLeod, who wrote a narrative of the voyage of H. M. S. Alceste, in which was brought over to England from the island of Borneo a serpent of the family of boida, 16 ft. long and 18 inches in circumference, describes their process of con- striction. A goat was put into the cage of the boa every three weeks and swallowed, not by the power of suction, but by the effect of muscular contraction, assisted by two rows of strong, hooked teeth. This snake was 2 hours and 20 minutes employed in gorging the goat, during which time, particularly while the ani- mal was in the jaws and throat of the con- strictor, the skin of the latter was distended almost to bursting, while the points of the horns could be seen, threatening as it were at every moment to pierce the scaly coat of the destroyer. The snake coiled himself, and re- mained torpid for three weeks, during which he so completely digested and converted to his own use the whole of the goat, that he passed nothing from him but a small quantity of cal- careous matter, not equal to a tenth part of the bones of the animal, and a few hairs ; and at the end of that time was in condition to devour another goat. Mr. Broderip, the author of " Leaves from the Note Book of a Naturalist " and the "Zoological Journal," describes in al- most the same words the killing and degluti- tion of a rabbit, which he observed in the tower of London. The time required to kill the rabbit was eight minutes. In every respect, indeed, Mr. Broderip corroborates the observations of Mr. McLeod, except on one point, whether the respiration of the serpent is suspended during the act of swallowing, which Mr. McLeod affirms and Mr. Broderip denies, although with- out dissection the mode of his breathing can- not well be determined. BOADEN, James, an English dramatist and biographer, born at Whitehaven in 1762, died in 1839. He was a painter, but abandoned the art, and wrote plays, none of which now keep possession of the stage. He also wrote lives of John Kemble, Mrs. Siddons, Mrs. Jordan, and Mrs. Inchbald, and an "Inquiry into the Authenticity of the various Pictures and Prints of Shakespeare" (London, 1824), di- rected against what is called Talma's portrait of Shakespeare, and accepting the Chandos portrait as authentic. BOADICEA, or Bondleea, queen of the Iceni, a British tribe inhabiting what are now the coun- ties of Cambridge, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Hert- ford, died about A. D. 62. Her husband, Prasn- tagus, the king of the Iceni, dying, left the em- peror Nero and his own two daughters joint heirs to his great wealth, hoping thereby to preserve his family and kingdom from the ra- pacity of the conquerors. But his kingdom was immediately taken possession of by the Roman centurions. For some real or imaginary of- fence the British queen was publicly scourged, and her daughters were abandoned to the lust of the slaves. Taking advantage of the absence of Suetonius Paulinus, the Roman governor, from that part of England, Boadicea raised the whole military force of her barbarians, and bursting at their head upon the Roman colony of London, burned the city and put to the sword in that and neighboring places at least 70,000 Roman citizens, traders, Italians, and other subjects of the empire. Suetonius hur- ried to the scene of action from the Isle of Man. The queen of the Iceni was in command of 120,000 troops, which gradually increased to as many as 230,000, according to Dion Oassius, while Suetonius could bring into the field fewer than 10,000 soldiers. The battle was fiercely contested, and Boadicea displayed great valor; but her troops being finally obliged to yield to the disciplined Romans, she took poison. The victors spared nothing; women, chil- dren, the beasts of burden, the dogs, were all cut to pieces. It is said that 80,000 Britons were butchered that day, while of the legion- aries only 400 fell, and about as many more were wounded. It is believed that the ac- tion took place not far from Verulnmium (St. Albans), a Roman colony, which at the first irruption had shared the fate of London. BOAR (gug aper), the male swine. The do- mestic hog and the wild boar of Europe, Afri- ca, and Asia are, generally speaking, of the same species, and will breed together and pro- duce young capable of propagating their kind. It appears that the most improved of the Eng- lish and American domesticated breeds are, for the most part, largely crossed and inter- mixed with the Chinese and perhaps the Turk- ish varieties. In America, Australia, and the Polynesian group, the hog was unknown origi-