pound pig. After a meal the python coils up in its shallow bathing pool 
and remains there for about one week. 
When first captured, most regal pythons refuse to eat and must be 
subjected to forced feeding. In one case twelve keepers were required to 
hold the monster while four skinned rabbits were being rammed down its 
throat with a pole. Actually the snake is no stronger than a powerful man, 
and it is only because of its length that so many men are needed to hold 
it still. 
It has been calculated by Benedict that a seventy-pound python needs 
one hundred and eight calories per day to keep it in good condition. A 
human being of twice the weight requires from fifteen to sixty times as 
much. A python may at one meal eat four hundred times as much food as 
it needs for a single day. This enables the reptile to fast for months without 
ill effects. One python fasted for seventeen months, during which time 
it lost half its weight but remained otherwise healthy. A few pythons have 
survived captivity for periods in excess of twenty years. 
INDIAN PYTHON 
Though somewhat shorter than the regal, the Indian or black-tailed python 
looks larger when coiled, because of its greater thickness. This species has 
two distinct types of coloration, one dark olive with black markings, the 
other tan, marked with olive-brown and usually showing a pinkish line 
on either side of its head. Both types have a dark, spear-shaped figure 
on the top of their heads. All are also known as rock pythons and are found 
in Ceylon as well as India. 
Though Indian pythons when captured also refuse food at first, they 
are easier to keep in captivity than their regal cousins. They can travel 
without losing their appetite and easily adapt themselves to circus life. 
They grow sluggish and docile, so that gullible sideshow audiences believe 
that they have been charmed. An Indian python may become so attached 
to its master that it will take food from no one else. These snakes have 
lived in captivity for twenty years. 
Other well-known pythons are the thickset African rock python, averag¬ 
ing about eighteen feet in length; and the carpet and diamond snakes of 
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