190 
THE GUIDE TO NATURE 
Seven Foot Snake as Household Pet. 
Cincinnati. Ohio. 
To the Editor: 
You are constantly teaching us to 
use our eyes and see the beautiful 
things about us. so I am going to ask 
vou to use your eyes and see my family 
with its latest pet. Both my boys hap- 
pen to be girls but even so I am trying 
to teach them to "use their eyes” and 
particularly to be unafraid of things 
thev mav encounter in their walks and 
rambles through the fields and woods. 
a time I kept it in a large cage in the 
cellar on account of the warmth there. 
The cage is about thirty inches by 
almost four feet, and the floor is cov- 
ered with horse bedding and in one cor- 
ner is a fairly large, flat pan of water. 
\Ye have had the snake not quite 
three months, yet in this short time it 
has grown very, very tame, following 
the children up and down the stairs. 
As far as I have been able to ob- 
serve. it really enjoys being petted. A- 
Anita, aged five, approaches it on the 
LOTS OF FUN WITH A SEVEN FOOT. TWENTY POUND SNAKE. 
For some time my little girls wanted a 
pet snake, with the result as shown in 
the pictures. 
My original intention was to get a 
king snake but I could not find one and 
so. as second choice, decided on the 
indigo or gopher snake from the de- 
scription in Ditmar’s “Reptile Book." 
I obtained one from the Odell Learn 
Company of San Antonio. Texas, a con- 
cern claiming to be the largest snake ex- 
porting house in the country. The price 
was five dollars. It is over seven feet 
long and weighs twenty pounds. For 
floor, the snake slowly rises in an up- 
right position in much the same way 
as we are accustomed to see in pictures 
of cobras, the baby stoops and the snake 
rests her head on the baby's shoulder 
To crawl over our laps while we are 
reading is a frequent performance. 
I envy you your attendance at the 
meeting of the New York Reptile So- 
ciety. I too am a member but have 
never been fortunate enough to be in 
New York when a meeting occurred. 
How I would have enjoyed seeing and 
handling the boa constrictor of which 
