98 ANIMAL LIFE IN AFRICA 



to get underground, or to discover some secure and hidden 

 . retreat in the bush. 



Personally, I never knew a python to seize anything 

 larger than a half-grown bushbuck, and that would, 

 I should imagine, be about the limit of a twelve-foot 

 serpent's capabilities. Natives say that a very large 

 one can swallow an impala, but I must say I never heard 

 of such a thing occurring in the Game Reserve, where 

 they have seldom been found to have eaten anything 

 exceeding in size a duiker or a steenbuck. Therefore, 

 I think that instances of these snakes attacking full- 

 grown human beings must be very exceptional indeed, 

 and nothing of the kind has ever occurred within my 

 experience. Of course, South Africa has its share of 

 snake stories and of vivid narrators thereof, but they 

 should all be accepted with a certain amount of caution. 

 Pythons, in fact, retreat, like other wild creatures, before 

 man, nor does the capture alive of even the largest speci- 

 mens involve any risk or much difficulty. 



The python's life is made up of a series of alternate 

 heavy gorges and inconceivably long fasts. It is said 

 that they can fast without inconvenience for at least 

 eighteen months. -I have myself kept large ones which, 

 for over three months, refused all food without apparent 

 discomfort. During nearly the whole of its period of 

 captivity, one of them remained all day immersed in a 

 large kaffir cooking-pot filled with water. Mr. Sanderson 

 captured one of fourteen feet in length out of a pool 

 in the year 1904, and, having put it in a sack, entrusted 

 the latter to a native to carry home. The " boy " 

 became alarmed, and, after a time, threw his burden 

 away, when the python, still enveloped in the covering, 

 managed to wriggle down an ant-bear hole. Thence it 

 was recaptured next day, and was placed inside a wire- 



