CONCERNING INDIAN SNAKES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 359, 10 May 1911, Page 2

CONCERNING INDIAN SNAKES.

Some people on first going to India seem to expect to find a snake bathing with them every morning, but during the long time I wandered all over the country and jungles 1 saw and killed but very few, and never even once met one in my path. But the idea gets hold of some people, and our doctor, who had a wife and children, and a very large garden running down to the river, was so anxious about them that he offered his mahli two rupees for every snake he killed in his garden. Needless to say the mahli made a pretty good haul of rupees the first week, but the snakes did not seem to diminish, rather to increase, and soor became so expensive that he had tc reduce the price to two annas, and even then the game would have gone on had we not chaffed liim so that he gave up paying altogether, when, of course, the snakes ceased to breed daily. I don't believe he ever saw a live one. That mahli must have hunted a biggish bit of country, and "rechauffed" a lot to get hold of as many as he did. Apropos of snakes, I saw a curious thing one day. We were coming up to a jheel, and paused, standing by the side of it, one of the large black-and-white, red-legged storks common in the country. It was moving its head up and down in a very curious manner, and took nc notice of us. A young fellow who had only just come out,, and had never seen one, asked me if he should shoot it. "Oh, no, poor brute, it's no use," but he said his shikari told him he would eat it. He shot it, and a man dashed up and cut its throat —a custom practicsd by the Mussulmani, who profess to eat nothing they have not drawn blood from. I have seen them do this even with storks. A small boy picked up one of its legs and swung it over his shouldßr, with its head hanging down We walked on about one hundred yards and were standing still, the boy having thrown the bird down, when he suddenly shouted out, "It's alive, sir!" and looking round I saw its head moving. 1 couldn't understand it, but on looking closer, found about four inches of the tail of a snake wobbling out from the ;ut in the neck, and we pulled out a big live water-snake about four feet long. This accounted for the stork's qu?cr behaviour, he had tried to swallow the snake bead first ; it was too big for him, .'.nd hie could not liX-t it down.'olonel T. A, St, Quintin. in "Blackwood."