NOTES FROM THE SCOTTISH ZOOLOGICAL PARK 131' 



NOTES FROM 

 THE SCOTTISH ZOOLOGICAL PARK 



ANIMAL "STOWAWAYS" 



Not all foreign animals which come to the Zoological Park 

 reach this country as recognised passengers on the ships which 

 carry them; from time to time they travel in a more furtive manner, 

 their presence being usually discovered only at the journey's end, 

 when they are lucky if death be not the penalty they pay. The 

 banana bunch is by far the most common medium of transport of 

 such "stowaways," though it is not the only one; any bale or crate 

 packed for despatch in a warm climate, with apertures into which 

 an animal might enter, is liable to become a vehicle of transport. 

 One of the most interesting examples of the kind which the writer 

 has met with was a specimen of an Algerian sand lizard {Fsammo- 

 droffii/s) which came to this country in a bale of esparto grass — the 

 point of particular interest being that the bale, before despatch, was 

 compressed by hydraulic pressure into practically a solid mass, and 

 though the lizard must have endured this great pressure, it survived 

 it and lived for some months after it was discovered at Inveresk, 

 though it would never feed. Two interesting stowaways of this kind 

 are at present on view in the Park. One, which arrived in April 

 last, is a Boa which was discovered when a crate of American 

 bananas was opened in a Glasgow fruit warehouse, and was sent to 

 the Park by Mr Henderson, the finder. The fact that this snake 

 was carefully captured uninjured, instead of being killed, is worthy 

 of note, for the finder had no knowledge of the species the snake 

 belonged to or that it was non-venomous, and there are not many 

 people who would deal with an unknown snake in such away. The 

 snake is probably a specimen of the West Indian Boa {^Boa divmi- 

 loqud) which closely resembles Boa cotistrictor, but is somewhat 

 darker in colour and does not grow to quite so large a size, probably 

 never exceeding eight feet or so, while Boa constrictor grows to at 

 any rate twelve feet. The Boas are inhabitants of central and tropical 

 South America and the West Indies (except two species which, 

 curiously, are natives of Madagascar), and feed almost exclusively, 

 if not entirely, on warm-blooded prey — small mammals and birds, 

 and it is doubtless in pursuit of mice or young rats that the snake 

 found its way into the crate; or possibly it had already had a good 



