222 REPTILES OF THE WORLD 



like the head of a javeHn. A curious characteristic 

 about mature specimens of the Regal Python is the 

 ruddy hue of the eyes, these looking like russet shoe 

 buttons and having, as with all the pythons, a vertical 

 pupil. 



Captive Regal Pythons prefer poultry and swine. A 

 sixteen-foot specimen can swallow an eight-pound 

 rooster, feathers, fighting spurs and all, within ten min- 

 utes from the time the performance commences, when 

 there is a hungry stare for more. One fowl of that 

 size is all that is allowed for a snake of such dimensions in 

 the Zoological Park; the twenty-foot specimens receive 

 two chickens at intervals of about ten days apart. Some 

 specimens prefer swine and are given freshly killed pigs. 

 A twenty-five pound pig is considered the proper size 

 for a twentj'-foot snake. A fair-sized bathing tank 

 should be in the cage. In this the big fellows coil and 

 bathe for a week at a time while digesting a meal. 



Most Regal Pythons are so nervous and irritable dur- 

 ing the first few months of confinement, they steadily 

 refuse food. Unless energetic measures are employed 

 to nourish them they become badly emaciated. They are 

 apt to deliberately continue the fast, actually starving to 

 death, if not fed bj^ force. When a big specimen is thus 

 languishing, with the possibility of approaching a sui- 

 cidal end, there is hope of awakening its dormant appe- 

 tite by forcing food down its throat. In the compulsory 

 feeding of the big snakes in the New York Zoological 

 Park — say for a twenty-foot specimen — the writer kills 

 four medium-sized rabbits, removes the skin, then ties 

 the animals together — the hind legs of one to the neck 

 of another; ordinary brown twine is used in this opera- 

 tion. A long bamboo pole is the accessory. This has 

 a blunt tip and is forced through the neck of the leading 



