THE SNAKE’S EYE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 70, 22 February 1932, Page 7

THE SNAKE’S EYE.

NO POWER OF FASCINATION. 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. Boulenger’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. In “Animal Ways” he points out the fact that people can see for themselves, by visiting foreign zoos, where snakes 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 nis father, which was one day given a live whit© 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, promptly appropriated 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 Bnake, however, that employs a kind of fascination, but not with its eye. The thrusting in and out of its tongue creates the illusion of a telescoping head, and any inquisitive lizard pausing td witness he phenomenon discovers too late that the head is within striking distance — and the curtain falls.