THE BIG GAME OF AFRICA 



crushed the head with a stone and then told a couple of 

 our " black taxidermists " to skin it. One of them came 

 back in a few minutes to tell me that the snake was again 

 worming away and that they did not dare to touch it. I 

 then tied the snake with a heavy string to a stick driven 

 into the ground, and, incredible as it sounds, it seemed 

 still to be trying to wiggle away when I saw it last, just 

 before sunset, and it was impossible to get any of the 

 ** skin men " to do anything with it that day. 



The python is another snake quite frequently seen in 

 British East Africa. The python is, perhaps, the most 

 widely spread of all the species of snakes, for it is not only 

 found in Africa, India, and Australia, but also southern 

 Europe, in the West Indies, and the southwestern part of 

 North America ; indeed, it seems to be a denizen of all the 

 warmer regions of the world, tropical and subtropical. 

 The Indian python is the largest of the family. This huge 

 reptile sometimes reaches the length of twenty-seven to 

 thirty feet, with a girth of sometimes even more than two 

 feet. Next to the Indian python in size comes the python 

 which is found in the damp forests of West Africa, where 

 it sometimes attains a length of over eighteen to twenty 

 feet, with a circumference of just about as many inches. 

 The body of this mighty reptile is somewhat depressed, 

 the belly being more flat than is generally the case with 

 snakes. The scales are very large and marked with dark 

 brown, irregular spots of different sizes, most of which 

 are connected by long, zigzag stripes running along each 

 side of the body. The head is also well defined and the 

 tail is short and stubby. 



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