Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-06-03

Strong bull movement in anacondas; alli-
u gators, especially those of large size, have
risen slightly and ella monsters
steady Rattlesnakes have fallen off point or two,
but quotations on Demonstrators show an upward
tendency.
Snakes, of course are always a staple commodity,
the demand for them by menageries geological gar
dens and dime museums being brisk at all seasons.
People in times of business depression get along
without horned toads and chameleons which are to
be regarded 1uXurles, but they must have ana
condas and pythons python of the largest size,
thirty feet long, is worth three hundred and fifty to
four hundred dollars but one can purchase twenty
foot anaconda for only hundred dollars.
Demonstrators are cheaper; you may get one
for eighty dollars Most people who go to the ZOO
or the circus imagine that all large serpents
Demonstrators; but that is a mistake. The boa
constructor is merely the biggest of number of
species of boas native to South America, and is
not huge, when all is said, rarely, matter of
fact exceeding eleven feet in length. Compared
with the gigantic python, 1t is a midget. But its
squeeze is remarkable.
The snake-hunters, upon whom the market de-
ponds for its supply of such reptiles, are usually
natives If the anaconda has Just eaten large
meal, he is likely to be found asleep. He dreams
not that a net is being thrown over him, and does
not wake up until he has been tied securely and
slowed in a box, all ready to be put aboard boat
and taken to the nearest seaport for shipment.
All Are Squeezers
A matter of fact, all of the giant serpents in
"A Guiding the anacondas and pythons, belong,
zo0logically speaking, to the family of the boas and
all of them are constrctors-that IS to say, gifted
with q tremendous power OF squeeze, Dy WHICH any
large specimen of this formidable reptilian tribe
can crush a to death if seized in its coils Also,
these snakes, though nonpoisonous, have formidable
teeth, with which they infECt serious and pain
full wounds
The pythons are Old World snakes, and the
largest and strongest of them the regal reticuated
python, which attains length of thirty feet, is
native to the islands of the Malay Archipelago. 1t
is commonly known in that part of the world
the rice snake for the that it is frequently
found in the rice-helds, which, being so situated
to be overlooked at intervals, afford a COngenial
habitat. The method usually adopted for capturing
the huge reptile is to set trap in the path 1t
is accustomed to follow (hese creatures have their
habits, it appears), and to make it in this way
a prisoner. The trap employed is fashioned some
what after the model of eel-pOt and the great
snake having entered, is unable to discover
exit.
South Carolina produces and exports more snakes
than any other State in the Union a fact due
chiefly to the circumstance that in that latitude
the northern and southern Op1idian hte-ZOneS
overlap, as biologists say, forming belt in which
a great number of species assembled. The
copperhead found there is full third bigger than
in its northern habitat and specimens of the northern
timber RATHER captured in the bamboo SwampS
almost equal in to the huge eight-fOot
diamond rattlesnake of the South. The diamond
rattlesnake by the way, which IS worth from three
and half to ten dollars in the reptile market,
according to size is probably the most poison
than recorded instance having caused death
in twenty minutes.
Rattesnake is markedly different in its
effect from that of the
cobra, which is supposed to
be the most deadly serpent 1880 -
of the Old World. Whereas z53a<zzss}zzs zaIf J s
the latter paralyzes the zFs s SSs 3
1tarC he