CANNIBAL SNAKES AT THE zoo.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9635, 6 October 1894, Page 2 (Supplement)

CANNIBAL SNAKES AT THE zoo.

Coiled up in a tank of spirits in the Reptile Gallery at the British Museum (Cromwell Road), is (says the Pall Mall Gazette) to be seen a fine specimen of the snake-eating "hamadryas." It is 13 feet in length, and of a venomous yellow-brown, a large and horrid-looking reptile, and one that, even with a stout staff in one's hand, it would be dangerous to meet in a jungle-path. But in the Zoo, the real snake itself is now to be seen, most actively alive, and anyone looking at it as it erects itself with inflated bond, can understand the terror which this truly awful reptile inspires among the natives of India. Its gestures when alert are extraordinarily impressive, for the instant it takes alarm it raises its head and neck with lightning rapidity from among its coils, and, blowing out its hood, stands, as it were, with " chest" thrown forward and head well back, the body absolutely motionless, in an attitude so threatening and so imposing that it is very easy to believe that the solitary half-clad villager, with only his lathi in his hand, suddenly confronted by such a terrifying object, is glad to shirk encounter with it and to escape from so deadly looking a presence. 2sor is it difficult to believe that this fearful serpent, which, without any provocation, thus readily and swiftly assumes a posture of offence, throwing its whole venomous heart into its attitude of attack, should, if threatened itself, or even suspicious oi peril, provoke a light and strike before it is assailed. For it is beyond reasonable doubt, from well-attested evidence, that he who meets the hamadryas must not expect to pass it without conflict. If he approaches it, the reptile accepts the challenge without a moment's hesitation ; if he stands his ground it will attack him ; if he flies it will, so they say, pursue.

Wonderful tales, and bloodcurdling, arc told, and believed, by the natives, ot how this horrible snake lias hunted men over hill and dale, swum rivers after them, and climbed trees, and, long after the hunted have thought that pursuit was abandoned. has come up again with them, dogged and resolute to continue the chase. Science, ot course, takes a calmer view of the haiuadryas and its ways, and, while admitting its exceptional fierceness, its readiness to attack bjforo being attacked, its rapidity in movement, admitting also that, like many other snakes, it takes to the water readily and climbs with ease, hesitates to believe that it actually pursues. Nor is this reluctance without reason. For, in the first place, a native, terrified by the suddenness of the snake's threatening advance and taking to flight, would not probably look behind him till he had run a long way, and when ho did do so the poor wretch, "frightened out of his wits,'' naturally enough, by the deadly apparition from, whieh he had fled, would easily imagine that every sound ho heard was made by the "sukercaor" in pursuit. The rustle of a crow-pheasant through the bushes which he himself had startled, the hiss of a mongoose among the herbage on the bank, suddenly &urpr;sod by the man's own hurrying feet, would be quite enough to set him off again ; ami tons, from false alarm to false alarm, lie might run a very long way indeed before he felt sure that the snake was no longer after him. And in the telling of the tale round the village fire how he would exaggerate the adventure, describing how he beheld the hamadryas come leaping through the jungle, shooting along too paths, how it hissed, and how its eyes flashed !

There would bo nothing extraordinary in such a narrative. I have, in America, heard perfectly intelligent white men tell cae same story in almost the Same words about snakes that are too timid to attack and too feeble to pursae ; and in Australia you may hear it, when snakes are the topic and the whisky-bottle passes round, told anywhere in the bush by men who will solemnly, if put to it, declare that they only escaped by being mounted. Small wonder, then, if the poor ryot, only too ready at any time to Jae scared out of his senses by the unexpected, and holding snakes, moreover, in keenly superstitious dread, should enlarge upon the details of his dangerous encounter with a species that sober science itself allows to be the most formidable and the most aggressive of all the ophidians. Again, it may reasonably bo asked, why should a snake chase an object that it cannot have any hopes of eating when caught ? Even the ferocity of wild beasts is limited by purpose. Nothing hunts for nothing's sake. The rogue elephant chases men with the definite object of killing them, but its murdorousness is both intelligible and intelligent. Other animals, in defence of their young, or in revenge for offences committed upon them, when pressed by hunger or impelled by rabies, will attack and pursue men. But in the case of the hamadryas there is no known reason to oiler. If it really chases men it does so, we must assume, for the mere sport of it, from a love of hunting for hunting's sake. But admitting this we admit a solecism in nature ; and science is, very properly, reluctant to do this. The native of India has excellent reason enough for believing it, for he supposes the snake to be under the impulse of demoniacal possession. To him a cobra—and the hamadryas is the king of the cobras— an incarnation of the supernatural for good or for evil, according to circumstances and consequences. So, if it stood on the tip of its tail, hopped after him like a kangaroo, barking like a dog, he would accept the phenomenon as quito within the limitations of propriety and order. For is it nob possessed of a devil? But men of science" (worse luck, I was going to say) have given over long accopting demoniacal possession as a sufficient explanation for irregularities in nature, and before they will assent to the hamadryas being addicted to the indefinite pursuing of passengers, they want to know the reason why. And wisdom here is " justified of her children," for these Snakes have been captured or killed within the precincts of the Botanical Gardens in Calcutta, and insido the limits of cantonments elsewhere, where they ought to have enjoyed such a bewildering abundance of opportunities for indiscriminate "shikar" as to satisfy even a hamadryas, or send it mad with perpetual hunting. The new arrivals in the Zoo—for they are still the " new arrivals"are remarkably fine specimens, one of them being, probably, close upon 14 feet. The shorter one, which is about 12 feet long, has already recovered its appetite after shedding its skin, and eaten several snakes ; but the other, though intensely active, has nob as yet confessed to any appetite. In their natural state they are said to prefer snakes as food, and it has oven been asserted that they will eat nothing bub their own kind. This, however, is quite untrue, as the hamadryas which was in the Zoo some years ago (and had lived there for 12 years) became towards the end of its life quite an indiscriminate feeder ; and seeing that, when wild, they are very partial to the banks of streams and to the water itself, there can be little doubt as to both froga and fish coming within their regular bill of fare.