SNAKE SWALLOWS SNAKE.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 July 1921, Page 12

SNAKE SWALLOWS SNAKE.

• DISCOVERY IN CREEK. While a number of mon wore having lunch near the loco shed at Picton, New South Wales, their attention was drawn by a splashing in rhe creek. Air. George Brown investigated, and saw. near the water’s edge a black snake, which mea-

sured 4ft. ’din. In a few minutes it left- the water, and as it was crawling up the bank, Brown killed it. Subsequently it was opened. It contained a snake of the same species, found to measure 2ft. 6in. It was comfortably curled in the large snake’s stomach, although practically dead. The incident is regarded as exceptional for this time of the year, and it is thought the reptile had been fighting. When tiie incident was referred to Mr. Kinghoi'n, of the reptile -section of the Fydney Museum, he <aid it was one of very common occurrence, and believed it was the case of the larger of two snakes who possessed the sar:r article of food swallowing the smaller one as well as the original meal. He also stated that the theory .that the snakes had been fighting was a very unlikely one.

“It is not unusual,” Mr. Kinghorn added, “-for bteck snakes and other species of land snakes, too, to frequent creeks and rivers. In fact, they arc good swimmers. Only quite recently a party from the museum went camping on the banks of the Nepean, and. one day we saw a fairly large black snake in the water. One of the party fired a shot and hit it. It swam all the hardeY, and it took no fewer than three lots of shot to end its life.” In the museum, incidentally, there is an interesting cast of a largo black snake with a smaller one half-way* down its neck.