Snakes in Paraguay

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22707, 4 August 1948, Page 6

Snakes in Paraguay

There were any amount of snakes in Paraguay, and deaths from snake bites were not uncommon ,said Mr. Paul Cox, a Christchurch man who is man ager of a large cattle ranch in Paraguay. Mr. Cox, who has been away from New Zealand for 19 years, is visiting Christchurch, He said that he had seen a boa constrictor 42 feet in length and about eight inches in diameter. Boa constrictors were very slow, and easy to evade, but they were hard to kill, he said. Twenty revolver shots had been fired Into the head of the one he had mentioned, but even then it Was not dead. The only way to dispose of them was to hang them from a tree for several hours. Competitions to be Held It is the intention of the Gisborne Competitions Society to hold its annual festival this month. As a precaution against the spread of poliomyelitis the Wellington festival, which was to be held towards the end of the month, has been cancelled. The secretary of the Gisborne society, Mr. D. A. Wells, said today that there had been no cases of poliomyelitis in Gisborne for some time and the abandonment of the festival had not been discussed by the society. With one exception, the" only outside competitors were from Napier, wnere no cases of the disease had been reported for some time. A senior Wellington girl was the only person entered in the competitions who would come from an area where cases of poliomyelitis were still being reported.