PLAGUE OF SNAKES

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 301, 12 March 1928, Page 12

PLAGUE OF SNAKES

PIED PIPER WANTED POSSIBLE PROFIT IN VIEW The town of Beaver Flats, Nebraska, is very much in need of a modern St. Patrick who can check the plague of snakes with which the Calamas Valley is inflicted, says the “San Francisco Examiner.” The serpents, a kind never before seen in that section, made their appearance last spring, after the first month of warm weather, and in a short time not only infested the fields and meadows, but also invaded the houses and outbuildings of ranches, and finally encroached within the town limits. It was impossible to take a walk anywhere in the section without coming across several dozen of the snakes. The city council of the town met and offered bounties for the killing of the snakes. Several thousand were thus destroyed by boys, but it did not seem materially to decrease the plague. As a matter of fact, it is likely that the problem of Beaver Flats can be solved if the inhabitants, instead of killing the snakes, capture them for export. It is a strange fact that Ireland, from whose soil St. Patrick once drove out all the snakes (according to legend) is now very much in need of serpents to fight the crop-destroying creatures of the farms. Ireland imports from the United States each year thousands of snakes, and is a regular customer for more. There are two or three snake farms in the country which send large shipments of snakes to the Emerald Isle. Beaver Flats might very well capitalise its present infliction, and profit by the scourge of snakes. Pending such a move, however, scientists are visiting the town to look into the origin of the strange appearance of the snakes, to determine just what kind of serpents they are, and to find ways and means to check the plague. There is a theory that the depositing of dead horses in the Little Sandy, a tributary of the Calamas River, has something to do with it, and pending further measures the city council has passed an ordinance forbidding the use of the river as a burying place for horses.