28 
AUSTRALIAN SNAKES. 
• 
The great quantity of saliva discharged by the snake over the body 
of the quarry preparatory to swallowing it, as described by other writers, 
has not been noticed in the case of our Hock Snakes—the Diamond and 
the Carpet Snake. Yet, when a carcass just devoured by one of them is, 
for some reason or other, disgorged, it is occasionally found covered with 
mucus evidently applied to it in its passage downwards. These rejected 
bodies are likewise found to be stretched to an extraordinary degree by 
the continual workings of the powerful muscles of the snake while 
engaged in the swallowing process. 
« 
Hock Snakes attain a great age, but cease to grow after a certain 
period. A Python eleven feet long would be about four years old 
(Vide Bibron’s Observations on the young Pythons in the Garden of 
Plants at Paris), and they grow much quicker in the first period of fife 
than afterwards. The males remain smaller than the females. These 
facts, stated by authorities like Gunther and Bibron, are borne out by 
observations made on Australian Hock Snakes, which, when born, are less 
than half the size of young Indian Pythons ; and a Diamond or Carpet 
Snake which measures above 10 feet in length may be more than twenty 
years old. Though little or no addition to the length of these large 
snakes is observed, it is most likely that they increase in girth. It has 
already been mentioned that Hock Snakes lay eggs, which the mother 
incubates; and, that Australian Hock Suakes are no exception to this rule, 
is proved by Mr. W. Allan, of Kimbriki, on the Manning Hiver, who a 
few years ago presented to this Museum a drawing of a heap of eggs of 
the Diamond or Carpet Snake, neatly piled up in a sort of nest of dry 
grass which was found in a hollow branch or log. Gunther mentions 
that a pair of Pythons copulated in January and February, the female 
producing fifteen eggs, the size of goose eggs, in May; and that having 
collected them in a conical heap, she entirely covered them by coiling 
herself round them spirally till her head rested in the centre on the top 
of the cone. In this position she remained till the 3rd of July, when eight 
of the eggs were hatched. Similar facts have been noticed in reference 
to another species from Africa; and, though Mr. Allan who made the 
observation did not actually see the snake upon the eggs that he found, it 
may be fairly concluded that Australian Pythons do not differ in this 
respect from their congenera in Asia and Africa. 
