WHERE SNAKES ABOUND.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2951, 5 January 1912, Page 2

WHERE SNAKES ABOUND.

New South Wales is infested with a great number of poisonous snakes. "I never was much afraid of snakes," observed a gentleman recently returned home after spending several y*ara in that country, " but on one or two occasions in my life I have come in to a little closer contact with th;se venomous reptiles than I would care to go through again.

" One afternoon a 6 I was crossing my garden carrying a K lass of water, I suddenly felt what I ljnew U, be a snake wind itself around my leg. The next moment I heard an angry hiss, and felt a sharp blow strike the glass in my hand. Involuntarily I dropped the glass, and leaped back. By this movement I released the snake on whose tail I had been standing, and it glided away in the grass.

" At another time 1 was sitting alone at a table on which stood a glass of milk. I was leaning forward with my head buried in my hands. All at once my attention was arrested by the sound of some animal lapping the milki from the glass. Thinking it was the cat, I reached out my hand to pat her, but to my horror my hand came in contact with the cold, clammy body of a snake. I started to my f<*et with a cry of alarm, and snatching my cane from a corner killed i'.e reptile, which measured over seven feet in length."