EXTRAORDINARY SWALLOW.

Dunstan Times, Issue 508, 12 January 1872, Page 1 (Supplement)

EXTRAORDINARY SWALLOW.

Mr. Frank Buckland describes, in Land and Water, the swallowing by a python of a boa constrictor : —"A few clays since a rabbit was, in the due course of things, jput into a cage occupied by two or three boa-constrictors and pythons, at the Zoological Gardens, bhortly afterwards Holland, the intelligent and obliging keener of the snake-house, was made aware, by the excitement of the visitors, that something unusual was going on. Running round the back of the cage, he saw at once what had happened : one of the largest of the snakes had swallowed down whole one of his comrades. Holland was only just in time, as the smaller snake had a'most disappeared down the throat of the larger one, there being only three or iour inches of his tail hanging out of one side of the mouth of this voiacious snake cannibal. Jumping immediately into the cage, in a most plucky manner, Holland seized the cannibal tightly by the throat. The brute at once opened his great wide mouth, and out slipped the rabbit—dead, of course. Why the rabbit should come out lir;,t I do not understand ; but it did. Holland then, seeing the snake number two writhing and kicking about inside snake number one, seized hold of the protruding four inches of the tail of the latter, and hauled away on it, getting out a few more inches —just enough to get a grip with his hand, and prevent the poor snake disappearing altogether. Stil holding the bigger snake by the neck, he then began a series of pulling, shaking, punching in the ribs, and squeezing, till he succeeded at last in making the big snake disgorge his friend from his capacious stomach. When once the smaller snake " got way" on him, he slipped out easilp enough, only stern foremost, of course. He was not hurt a bit; he simply laid en the floor of the den for a while, with his mouth open, wondering, doubtless, where he had been and what had happened. I saw him just now, coiled up on his bough, looking quite happy. 'J he larger snake —the 'swallower'—was an Indian python,bet\vcentenandelcvenfeet long ' ewallowee' was a South American boa about six feet long."