I lift the snakes by a hook and catch them by their tales. According to Anees, snakes eat rats and control their population. If all the snakes are killed, the rat population will grow so rapidly, that no foodgrains will be left on the Earth for the human being after ten years. Snake is the only animal that could reach the tail-end of the rat s burrow and can swallow as many as six rats at a time. Thus the snakes act as the nature s agent of biological control, says he.
Anees says snakes eat away eggs laid by other snakes and thereby check their own population.
They also swallow eggs of birds or animals without crushing their shell inside. The shells melt during hibernation through secretion of digestive juices. He has a few chicken eggs in whole, which he took out from the stomach of a snake. Anees has a lot many snakes, several of them spectacled cobras, packed in cloth bags and kept in ventilated boxes, glass cases or simply kept in large plastic bottles at home. He is now making a thorough study and has just begun writing a book on snakes, their beneficial role in the nature, first aid on snakebite etc.