EVE OF A SNAKE

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 20 February 1932, Page 15

EVE OF A SNAKE

NO POWER, OF FASCINATION. OLD IDEA CHALLENGED. LONDON, Feb. 5. The old idea that snakes fascinate their prey by the power of the eye is challenged, as it has been many times by other observers, in Mr. E. G. Bouienger’s book, ‘‘Animal Ways.” Mr. Boulenger is director of the London Zoo Aquarium, but writes as informingly on mammalia and reptiles as he does on fish. Tn “Animal ways” he points out the fact that people can see for themselves. by visiting foreign zoos, where isnakes are fed on live animals in public, how sparrows will hop round a rattlesnake, and a mouse sit unconcernedly on a snake’s back. Mr. Boulenger tells of a pet African infernal snake kept by liis father which was one day given a live white rat. The snake was not hungry, and lived in harmony with the rodent until winter, when the reptile dug itself a snug burrow, in which to forget its ills and its high-spirited stable companion.. The rat, however, prompiy aproriated the winter nest, hauling the snake out of its burrow and settling down in comfort. Faced with a winter in the open the snake dug a fresh hole and settled in. But with the coming: spring, appetite awakened in the snake, and “without wasting time on fascination it engulfed the autocratic rat.” There is one snake, however, that employs a kind of fascination, but not with its eye. The thrusting in and out of a telescopic head, and any inquisitive lizard pausing to witness the phenomenon discovers too late that the head is within striking distance—and the curtain falls.