SNAKES IN HOUSES

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 March 1939, Page 9

SNAKES IN HOUSES

EXCITING SKJRMISIIEE. MELBOURNE, January 23. Snakes have been very much “in the news” in Victoria this week, probably because of the exceptionally hot weather, and several exciting skiimishcs with them have been reported. Fortunately, none had fatal results. Although Mrs Morrissey, of Bocae 100 miles west of Melbourne, has killed as many as 27 snakes in a day, she admitted that she was alarmed when she saw a. sft tiger snake sharing a pillow with her two sleeping cliildien—A-ileen, aged six years, and Francis, aged ten months.

The snake had entered the house while*. New Year parti wa:j in progress. When thc guests left at 2 am. Mrs Morrissey walked into a bedroom with a candle to transfer the baby to his cot from the double bed he was sharing with his sister.

“As soon as I went into the room 1 knew there was a snake there,” said Mrs Morrissey. “Somehow you can tell. When I pulled back the coverlet on the bed f saw a big tiger snake at thc head of the bed, alongside the heads of the children, who were asleep. "1 screamed and picked up both the children, one in each arm. The snake slid away to thc floor and under thc bed. Aly husband rushed in, but thc lamp he was carrying blew out. 1 dumped the children in the passage, and my husband kept sweeping the snake into a corner, but it kept coming out again toward the candle. My husband kept it bailed up while I went outside and' procured a shovel, and we finished it off.

“I told my husband I was not going to bed for a while, as I had a feeling that there was another snake in the house,” said Mrs Morrissey. “1 sat down in a room at the other end of the house, and after I had been there about half an hour I beard a rustle in the room. Sure enough, there was another big snake. It went down a hole and outside before we could kill it. But I expect it has died since, because we cut off some of its tail as it slipped through.” North Balwyn, a suburb of Melbourne, supplied the next snake adventure. Attracted by the barking of his dog, Mr YV. Rigg went outside and saw a tiger snake—later found to measure Ift 3in—disappearing in the direction of his house.

As Mr Rigg has three children and he was afraid they might be bitten b\ the snake if it was not caught, he called his brother to join in the hunt. Armed with a torch, a gardening fork and a rake, they crawled under thc hou.se, where they could hear the snake hissing. Once they struck the snake on its tail with the rake, but it wriggled away. The snake put up a fight, aided by the darkness under the house, but finally it was cornered and killed.

A bunch of gum tips wriggled when Mr J. Santos began to tie it at his stall in the Victoria Market, Melbourne, one morning this week. Mr Santos dropped the bundle, grabbed a stick and killed a venomous 4ft copperhead snake that slid toward him out of the leaves.

On the previous day at Cranbourne, 27 miles from Melbourne, Mr Santos had gathered a truckload of gum tops, which are very popular for interior decoration when flowers are scarce. He stacked thc leaves at the side of the road before loading. Apparently the snake then hid in the pile. Mr Santos lifted thc bundled leaves —and the snake—in his arms, loaded them into his truck, drove the copperhead to Melbourne and unloaded it among the leaves. A tiger snake caused a stir shortly before the opening of a carnival in the River Yarra at YVarrandytc, a few miles north of Melbourne. The snake emerged from beneath the starting platform on the liver bank and swam into the water, where there were many bathers. It was driven ashore and killed.