AN ELUSIVE SNAKE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 136, 10 June 1936, Page 20

AN ELUSIVE SNAKE.

A LOVER OF DARKNESS

Some animals get on well ho pa use they are strongly armoured, others because of their line weapons, others because of their swiftness, others because they are clever, others because tliey can eat all sorts of things, others because they help one another. Some animals, however, are shy and weakly and not very clever; * their chance is to keep out of sight. They hide in the ground or in holes or under bark; they come out at night; and tliey may be so clothed that they are almost invisible. A good example of these elusive animals is a new snake found not long ago in California. It is called the leaf-nosed snake because it has a leaf-like scale 011 its snout, and that scale helps it to burro • in the sand. The skin of this. snake is so transparent that the blood shines through, as it does to some extent in our own skin; so the snake has a pinkish colour. But it dislikes the light of day, and if it is dug out of its burrow it is in a great hurry to bury itself again. In one case it covered itself entirely in three and a half minutes. It was dug up again in 10 minutes, and it had edged into the sand once more in two minutes —all except an inch of the tail. If insects like ants were made to crawl 011 its body, or if drops of water were put on its snout, the creature hurried into the ground. No doubt it feeds' at night, but what it hunts we do not know.