SNAKE PLAGUE

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21356, 26 December 1934, Page 11

SNAKE PLAGUE

VICTORIAN TOWNSHIP INVADED HUNDREDS KILLED IN WEEK (raOM OUR own coibcsfokdut.) SYDNEY, December 21. "Snake yarn" is a term frequently given by Australians to a tall story, but some snake yarns are true. Snakes are always a sign of the arrival of the Australian summer, and though this year they were late arriving, as was the hot weather, they are making up for lost time. Reports of encounters with them and of people being bitten appear daily in the papers. The best snake yarn (duly authenticated) this summer comes from Seymour, about 80 miles from Melbourne. The township has been invaded by snakes, which have swarmed into the police station, shops, and homes. More than 500 have been killed in a week. There are brown snakes, black snakes, tiger snakes and copperheads, and no one in the town dares move without being armed with a stick. Children are terrified, and several narrow escapes have been reported. Recent floods followed by the hot weather of the last few days are held responsible for the plague. Hundreds of snakes came down _t, he Goulburn river and were deposited on the flats where the stream widens at Seymour. As the floods subsided they were seen hanging in scores from trees and bushes. Cats and dogs are having stand-up fights with the reptiles in the streets. Two tiger snakes threatened to attack members of a congregation as they came out of church yesterday. During the massed bands concert in the public gardens, which were submerged in the floods, dozens of snakes came out. They did not appear to be charmed by the music, and prepared to attack people sitting on the grass. On the river bank at the railway bridge alone, 78 snakes were killed in one day. On Mr Coombes's proDerty at Mangalore, another 45 were killed. A police sergeant was talking with a man on the police station verandah when a tiger snake crawled up behind them. It was killed just in time. One black snake which was killed contained a large number of young.