Python’s egg
A short natural history note by N. B. Dennys, published in JSBRAS Vol. 9 (1882), comprising four illustrated items on reptiles, a crustacean, and a flowering plant observed in Singapore.
Summary
The note opens with a discussion of the reticulated python (Python reticulatus), correcting the common misidentification of the species as a boa constrictor and noting that all true boas are of American origin (p. 162). Dennys describes the egg, from which the accompanying illustration was made, as part of a mass of approximately one hundred eggs cemented together by a glutinous substance, around which the female coils herself. He records that the female’s temperature rises to 75° Fahrenheit and is maintained for 56 days until the young emerge, each about 16 inches long. The specimen was a gift from the Maharaja of Johor to the Raffles Museum (p. 162).
The remaining items are briefer: a description of the flying lizard (Draco volens) with a personal anecdote, a note that no lizard species is poisonous, and an observation on spider predation of lizards (pp. 162–163); a previously unfigured Singapore lobster, illustrated at one-third natural size (p. 163); and the flowering banana (Musa coccinea), noted as the most brilliantly flowering of the Musaceae, with a coloured plate that predated Madame Hoola van Nooten’s Choice Flowers, Fruits, and Leaves of Java (p. 163).