LIVELY PYTHONS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XVII, Issue 1728, 21 September 1922, Page 2

LIVELY PYTHONS.

HEAD-KEEPER ATTACKED. An indignation meeting of snakes was hurriedly called recently at the Sydney Zoo to discuss the arrival of two pythons from Johore. The meeting was not open to the press, but it ended in hisses for the pythons from Johore and a decision to start a big Bite Drive. Jealousy has eaten into the tails of the serpents, for the new animals are 15 feet and 19 feet long respectively. There is no other snake in the Zoo as big as these. And they're full of life.

They were taken from the steamei Marella in specially-constructed boxes, followed by the sad tears of the crew wrung out at the parting. They arrived at the Zoo, and Mr C. Camp, the head-keeper, learnt something. He had always been under the impression that reptiles in the winter time were not quite themselves, being in a state of semi-consciousness. So with this belief, it was "with a certain amount of self-confidence that he put his hand into the box. But the python had long given up the habit of being semi-conscious in winter. A mysterious sea voyage and suspicious travellings in weird boxes had taught it to keep both eyes and its mouth open. So when it saw the hand in the box it shut the mouth with Mr Camp's thumb inside it, and kept it shut. Outside the box Mr Camp was in a state of intense excitement. He tugged and kicked, while he revised hi-s ideas about snakes being semiconscious in the winter time, and when at last he got his thumb back again he feared to look at it. He made an energetic way for the casualty room of the Zoo, where the wound was dressed. He left a trail of blood along the path, up the steps, and all the way to Mr le Souef's office. Luckily pythons are not venomous, though villainous, and their bite is just a bite without the poison. When they opened the door both pythons were looking for fight, so one of the keepers threw bags over their heads. They amused themselves for the rest of the evening trying to unravel the jute mystery in which they so suddenly found themselves enveloped. The pythons are now in a speciallyconstructed reptile house with a dead tree in it. They are not near the other snakes, but they are passing the time trying to choke the old dead tree. A pair of bad-tempered, cantankerous females altogether.