SNAKE EPIDEMIC IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XXIX, Issue 3996, 20 November 1918, Page 3

SNAKE EPIDEMIC IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

The Temora district (New South Wales) is threatened by an invasion from snakes (states the local correspondent of the Sydney "Sun"). Ji outlying districts the reptiles are more plentiful than on any previous occasion In history. It has been written that before the world comes tan end we are to have a plague of snakes and a plague of frogs. And there are quite a number of people firmly of the conviction that the firstnamed disaster is about to befall us. Only a week or two ago Mr W. Ross, who is an octagenarian, k;lled a brown snake, measuring six feet long in the street in front of the church.The old man, armed with a whip, <?gained the day." Two lads, aged respectively 11 and 13, had an encounter with two snakes, near the cemetery, and marched home, carrying the reptiles in a kerosene tin. Professor Morrissy, the famous snake man, was a resident of Temora for a couple of months about this time last year, and a. •■lumber' of youngsters 1 picked up <\)me of the old charmer's "tricks of tho trade." Reports from Lake Cowall would appear to make that place even worse. So bad are the reptiles there that the shearers at the Lake Cowall station left that shed on account of them. They, we^e found in their beds at night in such numbers that the m°n packed up and left.