96 ANIMAL LIFE IN AFRICA 



water, and spend hours completely immersed, the head 

 or nostrils only just showing above the surface. Small 

 animals coming to drink are frequently thus seized, 

 dragged ashore, and swallowed. Should the water be 

 a little discoloured, it is almost impossible to distin- 

 guish the snake when concealed in this manner. 



I have met pythons moving across the open in the 

 middle of the day, their huge length dragged laboriously 

 along at the rate of not more than a mile an hour, 

 which seems to be about the utmost they are capable 

 of. To see them thus is, however, rather exceptional, 

 for they have many enemies among the large birds of 

 prey, and so, as far as possible, keep under cover. I 

 once walked up to one which was slowly moving along. 

 When I got within a couple of yards or so, he raised and 

 drew back his head, hissing loudly, but made no attempt 

 to lunge at me. On my wounding him with a rook rifle, 

 the bullet somehow missing the backbone, he merely 

 lowered his head and moved on at the same slow pace 

 as before. 



The python lies perfectly motionless in his ambush 

 until some unsuspecting mammal or bird of suitable size 

 comes along, when, making a swift lunge, he seizes it, 

 if a quadruped, usually by one of the legs or the nose. 

 In a twinkling of an eye he has it enveloped in his coils, 

 and then, still retaining the grip of his fangs, he proceeds 

 to crush it slowly to death by muscular constriction. 

 Should the animal be a fairly large one, a purchase is 

 obtained by wreathing the tail round a tree trunk a 

 branch, even a tuft of grass. This aid is not necessary 

 with small creatures, and a turkey cock, which fell a 

 victim in broad daylight at Sabi Bridge, was found 

 wrapped in the python's coils in a corner of the yard 

 where no hold for the tail was possible. 



