STRUGGLE BETWEEN SOUTH AMERICAN MONSTERS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIX, Issue I, 26 June 1897, Page 6

STRUGGLE BETWEEN SOUTH AMERICAN MONSTERS.

South American snakes bear about the same proportion to North American serpents that a black snake bears to an angleworm. It is true that there are some small, and, I may add. extremely venomous reptiles there, too. But the characteristic snake is the boa, of which there are found no less than eleven varieties.

These huge reptiles range in length from twenty to thirty feet and are thirty inches in circumference —a cartload of sinuous coils. According to the natives, the swallowing capacity of these reptiles is almost unlimited. Boas are not venomous and do not depend upon their teeth to capture their prey. Neither do they droop in a coil from the branches, holding on by their tails, while watching for a victim, as we so often see them pictured. When a boa attacks his prey he instantly ties himself around it in loops resembling what sailors call * mathawalker,* hiding his head in the midst of the coils to keep it out of danger. Going into a swampy place one day to look for game, as I parted the vines my hand touched some cold object, which made a shudder creep down my back. I had laid my hand upon a coil of the largest boa it was ever my fortune to encounter. As usual, its head could not be located —it always keeps that hidden among its coils out of harm's way—but it was doubtless watching me. Luckily, it happened to be cloyed on fish and indisposed to action. I finally succeeded in shooting it, and the creature measured twenty-nine feet from tip to tip. One morning my companion came into camp dragging a twenty-footer, which he had found occupying the same bed with him. He had made a * blind ’in the tall grass and rushes and had laid himself comfortably down to wait for game, when suddenly he became aware of something moving under him. He sprang to his feet and found that he had been audacionsly reposing ou the tail of this huge boa, which naturally resented being used as a bolster.

But there was one spectacle which met my eyes in that teeming tropical forest that surpassed anything which I had ever heard or read of. If I had stumbled upon a combat between the dragon and griffin of ancient fable it would hardly have been more startling. We were growing tired of venison, and as numerous teal and other wild ducks were flying about a near-by lagoon I decided to secure some to vary our diet. I took my Winchester as well as my shot gun, for one never knows when he might be pounced upon by a jaguar in these wilds, and its hard skull is proof against buckshot, except at perilously short range. Arriving near the water, I secreted myself behind a clump of banana plants and waited the approach of the fowl. I was just raising mv gun to shoot when suddenly they whirled away out of range, uttering their characteristic * peeping ’ cry. Then, looking out from my hiding place, I discovered the cause of their strange actions. About fifty yards away I saw an alligator about seven feet long lying in the shallow water, looking as complacent and indifferent as only an alligator can look. Apparently keeping him company was a large boa, a single coil of which was visible above the middle of the alligator’s back. The next instant the boa knotted itself several times around his victim in so firm an embrace that it could not move a muscle. The saurian’s jaws were thrown wide open, and its legs and claws were spread to their fullest extent as it lay helpless in that terrible embrace. The boa slid along his coils until he could pass his tail under the alligator’s throat, and dipping the end under a knotted coil which encircled the alligator’s body began to draw his victim’s head downward into the water. Evidently he knew that he had a tough customer to deal with, and concluded to supplement squeezing with drowning. At last a tongue flashed out between the folds ; then the end of the nose came into view, and the head was slowly and cautiously pushed forward. As soon as the eyes came in sight, though they were still some inches under water, a heavy charge from my rifle was planted between them. The monster at once relaxed the coils and went tumbling and writhing about, furiously lashing the water. I hastened out of the reach of its struggles, giving little thought to the alligator, which I took for granted was quite dead. Imagine, therefore, my surprise, to see him go scuttling off on the surface of the water—a very unusual position for one of his kind. Nor did he stop when he reached the opposite bank, but squirmed over it and on into the forest, and the crackling and crashing he made through the underbrush seemed to indicate that he proposed to vacate that particular spot forever.