I 9 8 CHILDHOOD OF ANIMALS 



snake is hungry and has proper accommodation to strike and 

 smother its victim, I think the actual death in this case, too, is 

 as often painless as when an animal is killed for human food. 



It is necessary to insist, however, on the fact that in both cases 

 the prey is extremely seldom eaten for some time after it is dead. 

 If the mouse or rat, guinea-pig, duck, or goat has been first killed 

 by the keeper, and thrown into the cage of a really hungry snake, 

 the snake, whether poisonous or a constrictor, will behave exactly 

 as if the victim were alive, will strike at it and withdraw in the 

 one case, or strike at it and throw a coil over it in the other case, 

 and in time proceed to eat it as if it had not noticed the difference. 

 If the snake is not very active and has to be excited or tempted, 

 this can very often be done by dangling the dead prey at the 

 end of a pole or some other simple mechanical device. It is my 

 personal opinion that in nearly every case a snake, if it be kept 

 properly warm and not fed except when it is either hungry or 

 ought to be hungry, can be induced to take dead food. And 

 I have no doubt but that it digests the food which has been killed 

 by a keeper just as well as when it has killed it itself. My own 

 experience and observations have led me to believe, against the 

 opinion of many experts, that there is very little in the view that 

 the digestive secretions do not work properly unless the snake 

 has had the excitement of killing its own food. A hungry, healthy 

 snake has an excellent digestion, and can deal very well with 

 anything it has swallowed. I believe also that there is less than 

 nothing in the curious, half-superstitious notion that living food 

 is better for living snakes than dead food. The small snakes 

 certainly usually take their food alive, but they will take killed 

 food, if it is fresh, equally well, and the large snakes always wait 

 until their prey is dead before they eat it. 



There remain, however, a small number of cases in which 

 individual snakes refuse all persuasion and would probably die 

 unless they are allowed to kill their victim. Such cases certainly 

 do occur, and those who have to deal with them must decide them 

 according to their own sense of what is right, whether to let the 

 snake die or to let it kill its prey. Some years ago, to make up 

 my own mind, I made a number of observations with my colleague, 

 Mr. R. I. Pocock, to ascertain the behaviour of different animals in the 

 presence of snakes. Clearly, if animals are really frightened in the 

 presence of snakes, there is much more than the mere fact that they 

 are killed and eaten to be considered before we use them as food, 



