loo ANIMAL LIFE IN AFRICA 



seemingly quite at home. Seizing a sack which happened 

 to be at hand, and assisted by my cook Ali, he held it 

 temptingly open in front of the reptile, which immediately 

 slid quietly down into the fancied safety of the dark 

 cavity. From this time forth no more cats were lost, 

 and there can be no doubt that this python, with its 

 mate, which was caught in the act of raiding the poultry 

 yard, had for years been growing and waxing fat chiefly 

 on a diet of domestic cats. The blockhouse and veranda 

 which the latter chiefly affected were built on an em- 

 bankment faced with rough boulders, overlooking the 

 river an ideal python hiding-place. 



I once took fifty-five eggs from a sixteen-foot female 

 python. In size they resemble those of a hen, but have 

 a leathery skin in place of a shell. They are laid in holes, 

 and the female is said to coil herself round them until 

 they are hatched. 



CHAPTER XIV 



SOME HARMLESS SNAKES 



THE EGG-EATING SNAKE is distributed over most of South 

 Africa. The type found in the Sabi is from two to three 

 feet long, and has large squarish dark brown spots on 

 its back, with darker bars on the sides of the body ; the 

 ground work of the rest of the body is very pale brown. 

 This species is quite harmless, its teeth being practically 

 non-existent, but it has in its throat a mechanism for 

 breaking the shell of the egg which it is swallowing whole, 

 so that the contents slide down easily into the stomach. 

 This snake has a superficial resemblance to the night 

 adder, though it is much more slender and longer pro- 

 portionately, and is frequently killed in mistake for it. 



