HOLIDAY VISIT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 43, 20 January 1936, Page 6

HOLIDAY VISIT.

NEW ZEALANDER FROM PANAMA. WELLINGTON, Jan. 20. ' Curled up in a cage in one of the ship’s cabins, a boa constrictor, five feet long and weighing nine pounds, arrived by the Remuera yesterday morning in charge of Mr E. W. Scott, its owner, who desires to present it to the Wellington Zoo. He declared the reptile to' the Customs officials, but so far has not received permission to bring it ashore. “1 am very fond of the tiling,” said Mr Scott, as lie took a reporter down to his cabin to view the strange creature. He explained that it had been given to him in Panama City, where lie is the editor of a Spanish-English newspaper. In fact, lie had two boa constrictors given to him, but in an argument over a house one ate the other. Like most true boas, it is of a very gentle disposition, and gave no trouble on the voyage, during which it lived on partridges supplied from the freezer. Mr Scott says he will take the reptile back homo with him if it is not accepted by the Zoo. Mr Scott, who is accompanied bv Mrs Scott, is on a visit to his parents, who reside -in Palmerston North. A former member of the literary staff of the Evening' Post, he left Wellington about nine years ago to take up an appointment on the Sydney Morning Herald. He remained there for some time until his departure for Europe, where lie travelled extensively. He returned to New Zealand a.t the end oi 1926, leaving ‘in February,- 192/. for America. As a reporter on/the Evening Graphic, a New York tabloid newspaper, he “covered” the famous Lindbergh case.