St. Landry democrat., 1883-03-03
STRANGE SNAKE STORIES.

Horses, Deer, Etc.
81 took that fellow with lasso,"
sad naturalist who had recently re-
turned from collecting tour in South
America, to a San reporter, pointing
to magnificent snake skin more than
twenty-five feet in length that hung
from the wall OF his study, sand in this
wise,' he continued, observing the look
of incredulity upon his visitors face.
II was wayup the Amazon, and being
anxious to get large snake, offered a
reward for one, and soon heard of a
big fellow that had been seen about
three miles from where / was. inn
mediately moved in the neighborhood,
and after we had secured the country
several days the boy l had with me
came running through the bush in great
excitement, saying that big boa and the
saubas ants) were having fight. The
:saubas, by the way, are foraging ants thar
put to flight man and beasts. When they
enter house the owner steps out and
runs for his life, and when I came up
ITO the snake / found it in a similar fix.
1t was magnificent specimen. It had
swallowed some exceedingly large ami
NAL, and, while almost unable to move,
had been attacked by the ants. The
grass, bushes, tWigs and leaves were
black with the insects, and every mo-
fment or two the great reptile would lift
itself in the air and sway about savage
Ely, but only to fall back again. / saw
that the ants would destroy it in an
hour, SO sent my boy back to the
village to get a rope, and took to the
trees myself.
..In half an hour he returned with
twenty men. / made lasso, and, get
ting near the snake, succeeded in
throwing it over his head, but became
fairly covered with ants, so that had
to rush away and roll in the brush to
rid myself of them. However, we all
rallied, manned the rope, and managed
to drag the snake out OF his retreat and
away from the ants. It was so sluggish
under this rough treatment that / was
able to place my pistol within six inches
,of its head when I shot it. 1 soon had
1T in camp and the skin taken Oft /
wanted the skeleton also, but the natives
stole it in the night, and my specimen
went for steWs the next day. Boa meat
lis not bad, and is very generally eaten
in many localities.
'.It is great mistake to think that
snakes are useless. They are, in the
first place, extremely valuable as
scavengers. The meat of the larger
kinds is eaten. The skins are invalu-
able as leather, and even here are con-
ssidered fashionable when made into
bags and pocket-book covers. Then
the oil of rattlesnakes and nearly all
eother serpents is valuable. Crotalin
comes from the rattlesnake and copper
head. This skin on the wall is by no
means one of the largest. Very few
people can be made to believe that
snakes attain the sizes mentioned by
naturalists. Nevertheless, gigantic
snakes do exist. In Borneo, Mr.. st.
John measured snakes twenty-six feet
in length Mr.. Bates, the naturalist,
measured in South America many water
boas that were twenty feet long. but the
largest snake ever reported to have been
seen by an European Of unquestioned
veracity was that vouched for by the
well-known botanist. DR.. Gardner.
The monster had swallowed a horse,
and had soon afterward been drowned
by being swept down q river by an over
flow, and when found after the settling
-of the water. it was hanging in a tree.
1t presented a most remarkable spec
Idclc, UciHg III ICSb lOuS stuu uio-
tended to an enormous bulk. These
sserpents are often called Temacnilcah-
nilia, meaning lighting with five men.
A skin Of one formerly in the British
Museum is thirty five feet long.
..Andanson observed asnake IN Sene-
gal that was fifty feet in length and
two and half in diameter, while
Waterton tells us that a Spaniard
showed him q skin at Angostura. the
capital of the Orinoco, that from its
thickness he judged to have been that
of serpent seventy feet long. Eal-
daens, the author. found serpents in
Ceylon thirty-six feet in length and in
Java he saw one that had swallowed a
stag entire. Owen, in his Natural
History Of Serpents. gives the length
of one as fifty feet, and Father Gumilla,
in his History OF Orinoko, refers to
,serpents forty feet long; SO that il
would seem fair to suppose that snakes
do attain what might be called gigantic
dimensions. On the Rio Braneo the
traders and natives report that snakes
swallow fuil-sized cattle, and this can
be readily conceived. The horns. OF
course, are not swallowed. The snake
dies in lethargic condition until they
drop off. I,
"A case came to my hearing con-
tinued the naturalist, t.of curious
accident occasioned by asnako that had
swallowed deer. A native pinching
the body. and thinking the reptile dead,
attempted to cut it, when the monster
writhed and hurled its head at the man
with SO much force that the projecting
horns penetrated his lungs and killed