REMINISCENCES FROM THE MELBOURNE ZOO. 
45 
both thrived, and the drake appeared to like his novel roost. At last 
he was removed and given to someone who was in need of a Muscovy 
drake and could get one nowhere else. Opinion was divided as to the 
cause of the snake’s forbearance. Some said the drake was too old a 
bird to be caught; others leaned to the idea that he “acted the innocent” 
so well that the snake thought it would be cruel to take advantage of 
such confiding reliance upon his honor. 
Much interest is always taken in the question as to how a snake 
manages to swallow animals so very much broader than itself, and, 
indeed, how it swallows at all. Many a curious person has written to 
the papers asking whether snakes really eat other snakes, and whether 
they swallow their own young as a means of protecting them, or for 
food. Mr. Wilkie has seen a snake at the Zoo with a smaller snake 
half-swallowed, and in the Sydney Museum there is a preserved snake 
with another snake half-way down its throat. A notice attached to the 
exhibit certifies that they have been preserved in the exact position 
in which they were despatched. Sometimes mice are put into the cages 
of the small venomous snakes, and Mr. Wilkie has repeatedly watched 
them eaten afterwards. He says that they follow the trail of a mouse 
by scent, apparently, for even though the “wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous 
beastie” is crouching in the corner opposite to it, the reptile will labori- 
ously follow the track the mouse took in its first terrified rush around 
the cage. Then, as soon as it comes within range of its victim, it will 
dart its poison into it, and at once the bitten creature will dash off, 
perhaps getting half-way around the cage before it drops, the poison 
having done its perfect work. Other snakes will pass that dead mouse 
by or crawl over it, unheeding. They seem never to touch a creature 
poisoned by another snake. The mice are definitely marked by their 
bites, and the reptiles know their individual catches by some infallible 
means. After poisoning, they will follow their victims up and swallow 
them at their leisure. 
Mr. Wilkie has something interesting to say upon the vexed question 
whether a snake covers its food with saliva before swallowing it or 
not. He does not know whether the custom prevails with all reptiles, 
but he has often watched one take up a mouse, get half of it into his 
mouth, and then eject it. Then the other half will be slowly treated 
the same way. The mouse is then covered with a slimy substance, and 
the snake then proceeds to swallow it once more, this time beginning 
with the part it first took into its mouth, and the whole finally disappears. 
Apparently they cannot poison frogs, of which they are very fond, and 
therefore they do not let them go once they get within striking distance. 
