196 CHILDHOOD OF ANIMALS 



alligators and crocodiles, and many little snakes and water-tortoises 

 are most readily tempted by small fish, other snakes and lizards 

 by small frogs, and chameleons by mealworms. 



The surest device, however, is to warm the little reptiles well 

 before trying to feed them. Little alligators and crocodiles, small 

 water-tortoises and many little snakes will usually feed readily if 

 put first in a bowl of water heated to a temperature of about 

 100 Fahr., and snakes and lizards and land tortoises should be put 

 in front of a hot fire (with, of course, the chance of wriggling away if 

 they find it too hot) or taken into the hottest compartment of a 

 greenhouse. In the first winter of their life they should be wakened 

 up by this method and offered food at least once a week. When 

 they are older, if they have been well fed through the autumn and 

 are plump and heavy, they need not be disturbed. 



If natural methods fail, cramming may be readily carried out with 

 most reptiles, and is sometimes successful. It is comparatively easy, 

 because the gullet is wide and runs straight back to the stomach 

 from the line of the floor of the mouth, and there is little danger, 

 if use be made' of a blunt instrument incapable of doing damage 

 to the back of the mouth and throat. Young crocodiles, alligators, 

 turtles or lizards should be held firmly with the left hand and 

 gently tickled along the soft skin near the hinge of the upper and 

 lower jaws until they gape, when a bolus of meat can easily be placed 

 far back in the mouth and pushed down the throat. Snakes have 

 to be handled more gently, partly because their ribs are very easily 

 broken when they struggle, and partly because if they wriggle, the 

 rather long gullet may not be straight and its wall be damaged. 

 I once saw a twenty-foot python being stuffed in a foreign Zoological 

 Collection. Its own keeper seized hold of it just behind the head 

 and pulled it out of its cage coil by coil, whilst a set of assistants 

 took their stations behind him, each grasping firmly a successive 

 portion of the snake as it was handed out. Finally, nine or ten 

 keepers in a row were holding the python and had much ado to 

 keep it straight. The food, which consisted of four skinned rabbits 

 arranged like a sausage on a long pole, had been prepared before- 

 hand. The keeper at the head then opened the jaws of the snake, 

 and a waiting expert slowly pushed the pole with the rabbits down 

 the throat of the snake until he had got it quite home. The pole 

 was then slowly withdrawn, and the rabbits were left behind, and 

 the mouth of the snake was cleaned and disinfected. The last 

 stage of the operation was to buckle a leather strap rather tightly 



