THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 81 
NOTES ON THE CARPET SNAKE. 
By Grorce E. Stinson. 
The Carpet snake (Python variegata) begins life under the 
handicap of a bad name for which, like a good many ,other 
harmless creatures, he frequently pays the penalty of his life. 
Though he sometimes visits the settler’s fowl-house ims good 
deeds in other directions far outweigh his bad ones. 
It is a mystery to many how he, being so slow, can cap- 
ture the swiftest animals. The writer is convinced that he 
catches them asleep, guided to his prey by his unerring scent. 
A party of shooters once raided a flying-fox camp near 
KKrambach (on the North Coast), and during the attack saw a 
very large carpet snake among the branches of a brushwood 
tree. They shot at him until he fell, and on opening him they 
found five foxes freshly swallowed—others in different stages. 
of digestion, and more than thirty skulls of others previously, 
digested. The settlers then realised that they had murdered a 
friend. 
The writer and a mate, one morning came across a carpet 
snake which had commenced to swallow a grey wallaby—the 
snake was a big fellow—about twelve feet long. ‘The wallaby 
a half-grown one. The animal was crushed into a shapeless 
mass. ‘he snake had the head and shoulders in his mouth. We 
visited him morning and evening, but he would never work 
while we watched. Still the wallaby was slowly but surely dis- 
appearing, and at the end of five days the meal was’ finished, 
and the snake went peacefully to sleep. 
The mouth of the carpet snake has two complete sets of 
jawbones and double rows of teeth. ‘lhe jawbones are movable 
and are not joined at the front, so that his mouth can expand 
to almost any width, as by the action of the jaws the mass is 
forced down the throat. 
The strength of the snake is wonderful. Once the writer 
and a brother came across the tail of a big fellow hanging out 
of a hole in a log, and started to pull; we could stretch him 
about a foot, and then he would contract again and all the time 
we both pulling our hardest.. He was stronger than the two 
of us, and we were pretty hefty fellows at that time. At last 
something in the log gave way, and he came out by the run. He 
did not seem a bit annoyed, so we left him at that. 
Although the snake has a voracious appetite and a wonder- 
ful digestion, he can outfast Dr. Tanner. A gentleman in the 
Manning River district, once caught a carpet snake, and con- 
