THE INDIANRUBBER SERPENT.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 753, 14 April 1877, Page 3

THE INDIANRUBBER SERPENT.

At the farther end of the room I saw what is known as the elastic serpent. It inhabits the dense jungles of the f Amazon. Some call it the rubber snake because it .feeds on the milk. that flows from, the Indian rubbar trees in the tropics. Usually, when not excited, it is only seven or eight; ifeet; long; ; but the moment its anger is arcnsed it begins to stretch and coil np in the cage until it is as long as a ship's cable. It is always longer at night than in the day time. After six o'clock it 1 begins the lengthening ' process, and proceeds to stretch at the rate of thirty feet a minute. At midnight it reaches its greatest length ;- then it reverses the operation, and by sunrise it resumes its normal condition'of eight feet. Several interesting experiments, have been made with it under the direction of Professor Olacta-ia of old Mexico. He rigged a kind of revolving drurC with a crank. A noose was fastened to the serpent's head and another tp his tail, and the man at the wheel was ordered to wind him up while the attendants held him in position. As the winding proceeded, a boy pplcefl him briskly witfc a rattan, so as to make him stretch easily. Strict account was kept, and in less than twenty, minutes, ninteen hundred feet of the reptile had been wound on the drum and fully half of him still remained in the cage. By darkening the room and keeping him excited with the rattan, he was made to reach a length of four thousand feet lacking a few yards. He was then scarcely larger than coarse wrapping twine, The cran^ let go^ and the , great strain made the wheel revolve with frightful rapidity, but the ser- ' pent was equal to the occasion. In a minute or two he was in his cage

again,, only eight' feet long and as hungry as a bear, ; ... The professor thinks that when lie gets used to being woundup oh the wheel he will stretch more than a mile. In South America the natives use these serpants as cables for bridging streams and deep precipices. Mr Alexander, the United States Counsul to that country, writes that he has sent seven of the finest specimens of these remarkable reptiles, and ui a few weeks they will be provided with a home in the department of animal curiosities in the the Patent Office . — Philadelphia Correspondent to"Danbury News."