April 8, 1911.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
529 
snakes, and a great many were'brought to me 
by men of my regiment, as well as by natives 
during my stay in Burma. One day when out 
shooting the Chinese francolin—partridges we 
used to call them—two brother officers and my¬ 
self came upon a large python which had swal¬ 
lowed a jungle sheep whole. This jungle sheep 
is the ribbed-faced deer called in Madras “jungle 
sheep’’ and in Burma “gyi.” The deer’s body 
was inside the snake, the head and antlers pro¬ 
truding from its gape, for mouth hardly de¬ 
scribes the aperture through which the deer’s 
body had passed. The snake could do nothing 
but wriggle, and that—to use a nautical expres¬ 
sion—only “abaft” the sheep. It was soon dis¬ 
patched, I am sorry to say, as I would now give 
a good deal to have remained there and watched 
the process of swallowing instead of stopping it. 
I have been told that while in the act of “assimi¬ 
lating” a large body like this, the upper and 
lower mandibles—or jawbones—disengage, and 
travel independently, while the snake heaves and 
heaves, and gradually hitches itself forward over 
the animal to be “swallowed,” until—after vast 
stretchings of the whole of the skin of the head 
and neck the great job is completed—they re¬ 
unite in their original places. After such a meal 
the reptile may well be torpid for weeks or 
longer before regaining its slim graceful shape. 
It is of course a generally accepted fact that 
these pythons kill their prey by compression. 
The deer mentioned above certain’y appeared to 
be a mass of jelly, but the odor when the carcass 
was opened overpowered our curiosity. 
Once again I was visiting the jail at Thayet- 
Myo. A python twenty-two feet long and about 
twenty-eight inches in girth was lying dead in 
a cabbage patch of the jail garden. It had been 
shot by the prison guard under the following cir¬ 
cumstances : The prison had a sentry posted on 
the roof at each corner of the square building. 
His duty was to give the alarm to the prison 
guard if any prisoner tried to escape, or any un¬ 
usual occurrence took place. 
On the morning of my visit there had un¬ 
doubtedly been an unusual occurrence. A 
python, dimensions as above, had entered the 
vegetable garden and crossed it to the fowl pen. 
Besides the fowls there were some five ducks 
in the pen. Now the front of the pen was 
fenced with diamond mesh, galvanized wire net¬ 
ting of a strong type. The snake could not re¬ 
sist a fat duck, so putting its head and neck 
through the stout diamond frame it seized and 
swallowed one. I have no doubt whatever that 
it would have “mopped up the bunch” inside the 
house, but that in adjusting number one to make 
room for number two it became aware of an 
uneasy feeling, owing to the wire around its 
waist. Neither have I any doubt that in addi¬ 
tion to becoming uneasy it became seriously 
alarmed. Being now unable either to disgorge 
or to get away, it tore off the whole section of 
netting six feet by eight and returned with this 
necklace or waistband through the cabbages. 
Not unnaturally, I think, the sentry seeing a 
six by eight foot wire section of fencing march¬ 
ing through the cabbage patch without any 
visible means of support gave the alarm, and 
then opened fire. The prison guard rushed out 
and also opened fire, and very shortly our hero 
lay dead in his frame. He was skinned and 
his skin cured and dressed in the jail, where they 
are noted for this kind of work. 
Of all the snakes in Burma, however, the 
hamadryad is, I feel certain, the one which com¬ 
mands most respect from among the natives and 
the white men who know. I have spoken to 
many native shikaris about the habits of this 
snake, and much regret never having seen one 
alive. Their stories all agree as to details which 
point to the fact that this snake really does 
attack man on sight at certain times. In ap¬ 
pearance it resembles a very large cobra di 
capello, being hooded and spectacled in the same 
manner and in similar colors. But its size is 
certainly three times as great when full grown, 
possibly more. A large cobra will measure five 
feet, very seldom six. The only hamadryad I 
have ever seen hangs in the old museum, Bom¬ 
bay, or did some years ago, and measured sixteen 
feet four inches. The natives of Burma say that 
during the breeding season the male hamadryad 
remains near the female in a state of most rest¬ 
less activity. He is reported to be ready—nay, 
anxious—to charge out at great speed, and strike 
with lightning rapidity anything that approaches, 
from a rabbit to an elephant. If such is the 
case, it is no wonder that the naked natives 
dread him. 
While beating through the jungle for small 
game I have sometimes seen the beaters stam¬ 
peded, and on asking the interpreter the reason, 
he has sometimes replied: “They thought it was 
a hamadryad, sahib.” 
If one pictures to oneself a cobra sixteen feet 
long charging to strike, his head would be some 
T HIS morning I counted the standing trees 
again, and there is one less. For the last 
four years their number has not changed 
-—till now. 
The shining ax has found another victim, and 
the mighty oak is gone, yet the action is not so 
ruthless as it might have been, for the all-be¬ 
stowing hand of time had long ceased to ring 
its trunk. Among his living brethren this com¬ 
rade stood, but he could not feel with them the 
changing seasons. His was not to know 
whether the spring breeze waked or the fateful 
wind of autumn went moaning to December's 
end. Their wondrous secret life was no part 
of him, and darkness was no different from 
light, only he held the place of his youth, but 
now even that place will soon be. gone, for the 
stump is crumbling nearer and nearer to earth. 
Fragments of bark, worm-burrowed and insect- 
bored, filled with parasitic larvae, are strewn 
here and there, together with broken bough 
ends, but the next freshet will sweep all away, 
destroying every trace—a summer’s breath will 
pass, when only a heap of brown dust, home for 
the giant ants, will remain. 
The others of the grove up through the valley 
are still alive, grim old veterans of a thousand 
storm fights. Lightning-seared, temptest- 
scarred, time-dismantled, they rise in stalwart 
bulk on both sides of the tiny streamlet’s banks. 
Their rude, deeply ribbed bark is black, and 
torn heavy knots speak of ancient wounds on 
four and a half feet from the ground at least, 
a very nasty height—his great hood spread, his 
rapid pace, the length of his strike. No, Broad¬ 
way for mine. 
The Burmese eat snakes, baked and boiled. I 
once ate a section of a cobra baked. It resem¬ 
bled whiting and was good. If I had not known 
it was snake I should probably have eaten lots 
and enjoyed it, but the fact that I knew it was 
a cobra, strangled me. 
Some years ago there was a great increase in 
the number of deaths from snake bite in India. 
The Government decided to take steps to put a 
stop to so alarming a state of things. It did so. 
A reward of one rupee was offered for every 
venomous snake killed, accounted for, and veri¬ 
fied through the proper official channel. The fol¬ 
lowing year was a record, both for deaths from 
bites and for rewards for dead snakes. The 
following year was worse still and nearly de¬ 
pleted the ruling coffers in paying up the snake 
bounty. A commission was appointed to ascer¬ 
tain how it was that in spite of the enormous 
amounts paid as bounties the snakes—the vene- 
mous ones only of course—had so enormously 
increased. 
The commission sat. It took evidence and as¬ 
certained that every native establishment through¬ 
out the length and breadth of the whole of 
Hindustan was a snake farm, with its own ova, 
hatchery, brooders, yearlings and so on, and that 
the larger companies were just being turned into 
trusts holding cobra stock at a rupee per capita. 
trunk and crotch, the sturdy limbs show all the 
battle strength that years of wrestling have im¬ 
bued—they have stood immovable and greeted 
every red dawn coming up over the rim of the 
world, seen every sunset in the sea of the West. 
It seems that the scythe of death cutting at 
their contorted roots has blunted and turned 
its edge till, recognizing the futility of the at¬ 
tack, he has passed them by. The moss clusters 
cling round their bases, upholstering in nature’s 
cool, green velvet the sloping margin of the 
stream for boyhood’s hot feet or the tired frame 
of maturity. 
Limpid waters fill the dark, rich earth with 
moisture, and searching fibrous rootlets know 
where to turn in the swimming heat of a full 
summer noon. Of a truth, they have taken the 
stream edge as their own and lie like dark 
snakes under the drooping sedge. Some places 
the river’s course has changed; abruptly the 
grinding spring ice has torn away the bends, 
exposing the matted roots with tenebrous 
caverns underneath, and the little waves rush up 
laughing in pretended boldness as if to enter, 
but whirl in sudden fear and scud with blanched 
faces down to the safety of the open meadow. 
Rolling ground spotted with innumerable 
tussocks spreads away on all sides, slender, 
scallop-leaved shoots marking where fallen 
acorns have fulfilled their destiny. Pasturing 
beasts know the boon of the thick, dark shade 
thrown by the massive heads of foliage, and 
The Oak Valley; an Idyl 
By S. A. WHITE 
