Snake’s Journey on Bumpy Axle

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1078, 16 September 1930, Page 10

Snake’s Journey on Bumpy Axle

“CLAUDE” THE PYTHON AN AUSTRALIAN ADVENTURE “Claude’s” home was in Arnheim Land —somewhere north of the Roper River, in the Northern Territory, and his real name was Python Spilot.es Variegata. Having just swallowed a rock wallaby as a light luncheon, he lay coiled up in the dense tropical undergrowth at peace with the would and quite unconscious of the name which was shortly to be tacked on to him. Our party, consisting of three practically naked blacks, and a perspiring white man, forcing its way through the cane grass and creeper which towered above our heads, rudely awakened the sleeping snake, writes K. Langford Smith in the “Sydney Sun.” We “looked out,” hut finding only a sleepy carpet snake handicapped by a peculiar bulge somewhere about the middle, bravely captured the specimen. / Putting it in a flour bag 1 gave it to a blackfellow to carry. At the station homestead (a miniature Taronga Park) Claude was placed in the “snake still sleepy,, while the bulge still showed where the rock wallaby slept the sleep of the unwary. For many days he was content to sleep, but awakening one day with an early morning appetite he calmly commenced to swallow one of his smaller house mates. “Big Fellow's” Act An excited lubra rushed round to my office. “Big fellow snake bin dug out little fellow,” she gasped, and the whole station went to the rescue. A visiting stockman (the only other white man available) was reluctantly pressed into service and asked to hold the snake. He moved as an amendment that a blackfellow would hold the snake, and he would stand by with a big waddy to “bash him if he gets away.” Finally I held the snake and volunteers from among the dusky onlookers firmly pressed its abdomen, commencing near the tail and gradually working toward the head. The rescued snake was safe and whole, but looked a little surprised and worried. As it was a valuable specimen, I surprised it still more by later preserving it in spirits. Claude’s life for the next few weeks consisted of eating and sleeping, and as he showed no inclination to “go bush” he was given his freedom. However, after several unrehearsed meetings with startled missionaries and visitors, 1 received a polite request to “shut that beastly snake up,” so back he had to go to the cage. Survival of Fittest There was plenty of company in the snake house, as between 20 and 30 snakes of various species were being fed and cared for so that they might eventually be transferred to Taronga Park. But this was not to be. The naturalist was the only white man on the station at this time, and while he was ill with malaria, the blacks forgot to feed the unfortunate snakes, which, being hungry, turned cannibal. The larger ones ate the smaller ones until finally only Claude was left. I was to be accompanied as far as Alice Springs by three friends and so we loaded the old Ford until the springs were nearly flat. Claude was packed in a flour bag on the runningboard. Pulling up at a certain cattle station, we were surprised to see lubras and boys scatter at the car’s approach. The reason was soon evident, for there was Claude, looking very unhappy. coiled round the front axle! Every time the car went over a bump, the front spring pinched his tail. He hissed violently at everyone who approached and appeared unable to distinguish friend from foe. Not wishing to test the sharpness of his teeth, which were many and long, though free from poison, I made a quick grab and caught him by the back of the head. Now began a tug of war. The snake pulled and, putting my foot against the axle, I pulled also until Claude’s neck stretched like a rubber band. Eventually Claude gave in and le.t go his hold of the so I carefully restored him to the flour bag, a thinner and a longer snake.

But the cold and rough travelling of the journey, was too much for a reptile used to the warmth of a tropical jungle, and Claude, coiling up in a vain effort to keep warm, dozed off to sleep and didn’t