KNOWLEDGE. 



[January 1, 1895. 



and claws — with no faculty of scent for the tracking of 

 prey, nor rapidity for pursuit — and withal one of the most 

 shortsighted animals on the face of the earth (I consider 

 that no snake can see anything distinctly at a distance 

 equal to twice its own length), it must depend, one would 

 think, for its sustenance on such creatures as happen 

 to run literally against its nose. Yet it is remarkably 

 fastidious in its choice of food, every species being prac- 

 tically limited to one or two articles of diet, in defect of 

 which they will absolutely starve to death, though enjoying 

 abundant opportunities of partaking of other things just 

 as conducive to nutrition. Individual specimens, too, 

 belonging to the same species, exhibit marked prejudices 

 and predilections with regard to what they eat and drink. 

 Among my own snakes I find that one will accept guinea- 

 pigs and nothing else, while its brother may betray quite 

 as keen and exclusive a preference for rats or rabbits. All 

 certainly have one great advantage which helps them to 

 maintain this rigid attitude of selection, and that is the 

 phenomenal length of time during which they can fast 

 compatibly with the preservation of health, as well as the 

 relatively small amount of food necessary to them to 

 support their lowly-vitalized existence and even to provide 

 for growth. Our common grass-snake, which attains a 

 length of four feet or more, probably does fairly well if it 

 gets six good frogs a year. Here, at any rate, is a fine 

 and vigorous example of its near relation, the viperine 

 snake of the South of Europe, which has contented itself 

 with for.r medium-sized frogs per annum during the 

 eight years that it has been in my possession, though it 

 might have swallowed ten times that number had it chosen 

 to avail itself of its privileges. Like most animals in 

 captivity, serpents when they do consent to feed frequently 

 grow to dimensions not exemplified amongst those remaining 

 in their native haunts, owing to the excess and regularity 

 of the supply of nourishment. All of them will take small 

 animals rather than large, catrn's iKiribiif: ; the python or 

 anaconda capable of swallowing a deer will most likely be 

 found to live on creatures about the si5:e of rabbits, and will 

 undoubtedly thrive better thereon. Hugely dispropor- 

 tionate meals, though not unknown, are probably rare 

 amongst wild snakes, and indeed are not altogether devoid 

 of danger, since the morsel will sometimes decompose in 

 the stomach before the whole of it can be submitted to the 

 action of the gastric juice, a state of aflairs leading to 

 vomiting, inflammation of the lining mucous membrane 

 of the intestine, and perhaps death. A young python of 

 my own managed to draw itself over a large rabbit intended 

 for a bigger cagemate ; it swelled almost to bursting with 

 the gaseous products of decomposition, and at last (after 

 eight days) rejected the meal in a horribly fcptid condition. 

 It never fed again, and could not retain the lightest forms 

 of peptonized aliment introduced into its stomach, not 

 even the bodies of small animals killed by rattlesnakes, I 

 believe the venom of a viperine serpent to be the most 

 powerful solvent of albumen to be found in nature, flesh 

 thoroughly impregnated with a full injection of the fluid 

 being already on the high road to digestion. Not only 

 snakes but other animals will retain and - absorb food 

 treated in this way when all else is regurgitated. 



One need be in no hurry to resort to an artificial process 

 of administering nourishment in order to avert death by 

 starvation in the case of a snake. As a matter of fact, I 

 always give mine three or four months, after arrival, to 

 recover from the disturbance to the nervous system entailed 

 by capture and transit, unless they should happen to be in 

 a preternaturally feeble condition. It is hardly credible 

 to those who have not lived in constant association with 

 these reptiles that they may exist for two years or more 



without any food whatever, and yet enjoy perfect health 

 and possibly feed well at the end of that time — this, too, 

 be it remembered, in a temperature which ensures the 

 maintenance of their bodily activity all the while, and not 

 in a state of torpid hybernation. A fine boa constrictor of 

 mine took a meal on or about Christmas Day, 18H1. 

 Throughout the whole of 1882 and 18S3 it refused all food, 

 though it continued well, shedding its skin at regular 

 periods, and ■' curling up " in a normal manner (a restless 

 snake, one that is always roaming about its cage, may 

 be suspected of being ill, while a healthy one spends 

 the greater part of its leisure quiescent, with its folds 

 disposed one above the other). It began to eat again 

 in .January, 1884, and has fed freely ever since. Another 

 member of the same species, one of the brood of thirty- 

 one to which the Panama boa at the Zoological Gardens 

 gave birth on the 30th of June, 1877, developed a huge 

 cruciform tumour in the neck when it was six years 

 old, the pressure of which interfered with its swallowing, 

 though it did not prevent respiration ; it did not die 

 until it had undergone a period of twenty-two months' 

 abstinence, and even then the proximate cause of its 

 decease appeared to be the loss of nerve force. Similar 

 instances might be culled from the records of most mena- 

 geries where the Ophidia are kept in any numbers. 



A serpent, under normal circumstances, sheds its skin at 

 intervals of from three to six weeks, very young specimens 

 more frequently, very old ones not so often. This function 

 does not depend upon the question of feeding, though it 

 may be modified thereby, and is also liable to be hastened 

 or retarded by the character of the food. It is also inde- 

 pendent of the phenomena of growth. For some days — 

 possibly a week or two — before this shedding of the 

 cuticle, the serpent never eats ; but directly the epidermis 

 is cast, it is ready and eager for prey. It usually happens, 

 however, that an exception to this rule occurs once in the 

 course of the year, when the creature remains from one 

 shedding to the next, or perhaps passes over two, without 

 taking a meal ; and I have observed that this corresponds, 

 roughly, with the time of its hybernation in its native 

 habitat. The trait wears out in a few years, but if it 

 should produce offspring soon after its reception into 

 captivity, the young ones will exhibit the same peculiarity. 



The reader will please understand that all my remarks 

 in the course of this paper apply to serpents kept always, 

 summer and winter, at full feeding heat, and never allowed 

 to become torpid from cold. The act and fact of swallowdng 

 a meal may be taken as the criterion of the temperature at 

 which they should live, since the process of swallowing 

 food is absolutely the most severe exertion which snakes are 

 called upon to perform throughout their whole existence, 

 as those who have witnessed the spectacle will readily 

 believe. Even the lightning flash, coil, and crush of the 

 constrictors involves a less expenditure of force ; a python 

 will kill at a degree of warmth lower than that which is 

 necessary to induce it to eat. 



For several years I have resorted with singular success 

 to a method of feeding the serpents in my collection by 

 artificial means, under what are apparently very abnormal 

 conditions, a success which is so marked, both as regards 

 the welfare of the creatures which have always been objects 

 of the highest and most affectionate interest to me, and 

 my own convenience in keeping them, that I think seriously 

 of dispensing with my larder of animated provisions 

 altogether, and for the future bringing up every inmate of 

 my Reptilium, "feeder" and " starver " alike, by hand. 

 At such intervals as experience teaches me to consider 

 suitable, I open their mouths and simply fill them up with 

 pieces of raw meat, without taking into account what their 



