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SNAKES. 17 
keeper gave them two pigeons, and before he left the Reptile 
House he noticed that each Snake had commenced to swallow a 
bird. Next morning the keeper was astonished to find that in 
the vivarium where he had left two Snakes and two pigeons the 
night before, there was only one Snake, and which was present- 
ing a most unusual appearance. It was of about three times its 
normal diameter, and so stiff and uncomfortable that it could not 
coil itself properly. Its skin was stretched almost to breaking, 
and every scale in its body seemed separated from its neighbour. 
The fact, therefore, quickly dawned upon the observer that the 
larger Boa Constrictor had not only swallowed its own and its 
companion’s supper, but its companion as well. This strange 
deed is said to have been the result of an accident. And most 
probably it was. No doubt the cannibal quickly ate its own 
prey, and being still hungry, and a little greedy also, seized and 
began to eat the portion of the pigeon which was then protruding 
from its friend’s mouth; and as, under these circumstances, both 
Snakes were swallowing the same bird, their heads in course of 
time met, and, the deglutition being continued, the jaws of the 
larger Boa worked their way over those of the smaller, and thus, 
though slowly but surely and painfully, passed over the whole of 
the victim’s body until it had disappeared entirely from view. 
Not only did this Reptile survive its unusual feast, but within a 
_ few weeks recommenced to feed. 
I have several times nearly had the same kind of accident 
happen among my own Snakes. For instance, two Snakes have 
seized the same frog, and each Ophidian has continued swallowing 
until one Snake has been almost engulfed by the other. More 
than once or twice I have found a Snake half-way down another 
Snake’s throat (having gone there, as my little son thought, after 
its own frog). But the stranger part of the matter is that, after 
I have made the bigger Snake disgorge its friend, the friend has 
been so little disconcerted by its late experience that it has 
eagerly taken another frog when it has been offered to him. 
I think Dr. Stradling has said somewhere that he has known a 
frog, after having been swallowed by a Snake and disgorged at once, 
eat a mealworm within a minute or two of its return to light. One 
gathers from such circumstances as these, that beimg swallowed 
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