PLAGUE OF SNAKES.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 July 1921, Page 12

PLAGUE OF SNAKES.

AFTERMATH OF FLOODS. Sydney, June 7. One result of the heavy rains in the Northern Rivers district of New South Wales, and of the consequent floods in the rivers, has been a plague of snakes: Many of the settlers are having unenviable experiences. Many of the worst varieties of Australian snakes live in the swamps, protected against their natural enemies by the thick growth. When an exceptionally heavy flood occurs the waters of the rivers will generally sweep through the swamps, and the snakes are either drowned or are carried off on floating timber. The reptiles show the most astonishing ingenuity in finding logs and branches which are likely to float, and lodging, themselves securely thereon. There they remain until the river is falling, and their barques are thrown ashore somewhere. The Clarence River, on this occasion, rose exceptionally high, and the settlers along the lower reaches are, at the present time, engaged in a perpetual war with the invading reptiles. Many stockowners report heavy losses. One man, Mr. T. E. Smith, of Taloumbi, says that in three weeks he has lost two valuable horses, a cow and a breeding-sow, owing to their being bitten by snakes. He has killed scores of snakes, but indications suggest that there are hundreds more to kill. “Every drifting log and stick from the up-country swamps had a. snake on it,” said another river settler. “I have killed over 40 on my place recently. They are mostly black snakes from 9in. to 3ft sin. in length. I was digging a post-hole the other day, and I felt a tugging at one leg of the heavy trousers I was wearing. I thought it was a. goat that was wandering about near me at the time, but when, I looked round 1 saw the goat some distance off. A huge black snake was there, with his fang\ well fastened in the material of the trousers. I killed the snake .and with some, difficulty unhooked it, and I found traces of a considerable amount of poison in the thlok t corduroy.”