836 
NOTES ON SNAKES IN EAST AFRICA 
Quoting from my diary of September 20 : 4 At 1 a.m. this 
morning I was roused by an orderly “ Did I want a fine big 
snake ? ” Dressing hurriedly I accompanied him to the Mess 
tent of the sick officers’ wards. We saw its track in the road 
as we went. It lay extended beneath the table, and as we 
entered with a feeble lantern, it struck forward with open jaws 
a couple of times. Obviously it was excited and more lively 
than in the daytime. 
‘ I made a detour round the table as it started to retire and 
grabbed it by the neck just as the orderly disappeared to 
answer a patient’s call. For full two minutes I struggled with 
the creature, slipping off its coils as fast as it put them on my 
arm ; my foot upon its tail gave me an advantage and I managed 
to get its head into a sack, after which it went quietly 
enough. Within a quarter of an hour from the time I was 
disturbed I was back in bed, having first ascertained that it 
had squeezed its way out through the wire mesh through sheer 
force.’ 
Its feeding possibilities proved very interesting. From 
September 12 to November 27 it only ate three rats, after which 
it cast its skin. 
On November 28 it took a beautiful little malachite king- 
fisher (. Ispidiana ). On December 1 it caught and killed a 
young goshawk which was just able to fly. On December 2, 
hearing the monkeys making a great to-do, I hastened out to 
find the python sliding silently towards the bush in which was 
the goshawk’s nest ; the remaining goshawk was only removed 
just in time, for a few minutes later the python had climbed 
up and was nosing round in the nest. 
On December 9 it ate a dead fowl. On December 12 a 
dead rat and also two headless blue rollers that were smelling 
badly ; it defecated a large amount of hair and feathers and 
apparently disgorged the quills of the fowl swallowed two days 
ago. On December 14 it distinguished itself by not only 
taking a dead wingless fruit pigeon, but the skinned body of 
a little egret. Having got the body crosswise in its mouth 
it was in great difficulties, but immediately on the writer 
taking hold of its neck it dropped it easily enough. It then 
took it again and swallowed it without further trouble. After 
