A GRUESOME SIGHT. 227 



When a venomous snake bites its prey, the nervous system 

 is rapidly benumbed, and all sensation lost ; therefore, practically 

 speaking, the victim does not suffer pain. 



The favourite food of the Puff Adder is rats and mice. It 

 will, when its choice food is scarce, eat toads, lizards, and other 

 creatures. When making a meal of a toad, the Puff Adder 

 simply seizes it by the head, without bothering to strike it first, 

 and proceeds to swallow it alive. 



A Modern Jonah. 

 One day, away in the wilds of Zululand, I was sitting in a 

 dreamy mood on an ant heap, when out of a shrub hopped a 

 toad followed by a Puff Adder, which seized it. My natural 

 prompting was to rescue the toad, but my investigating instinct 

 got the better of me, so I just sat still and watched the snake 

 swallow the toad. It took about half an hour, because the latter 

 was a big one. At last it finished, and yawned several times, 

 like the man who dines not wisely, but too well. Then my turn 

 came, and I shot him. With my hunting knife I carefully dis- 

 embowelled him, disinterred the toad, and laid it on the ground. 

 It was an elongated thing of the nature of a sausage, covered all 

 over with slime. 



Presently the slimy object moved. It inhaled a breath of 

 air. It got broader. Its limbs began to come back into their 

 natural positions, and it sat up, opened its eyes and looked 

 around in a dazed sort of way. Then it gave a few preliminary 

 jumps, and finding its limbs to be serviceable, hopped off into 

 the bush, apparently not a bit the worse for its Jonah-like 

 adventure. This incident happened many years ago, and since 

 then I have had similar experiences on several occasions. A 

 toad, like most amphibians and reptiles, is tenacious of life, and 

 can exist for a considerable time without breathing. It is not 

 possible for any warm-blooded creature, such as a mammal or 

 bird, to exist alive after being swallowed by a snake, because 

 immediately the breathing is arrested the creature dies. 



A Gruesome Sight. 



Once I observed an enormous swarm of those dreaded pests, 



the Red Ants. They seemed to be actively employed, so I went 



closer, and discovered they were swarming over a Puff Adder. 



The snake was wriggling and struggling furiously. I retired out 



