The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1911-07-22
BIG Pig PYTHONS AND
THEIR HUGE SWALLOW
A Snake Expert Tells of The ReticuIat-
ed Reptiles, Their Anatomy and Their
Astounding Capacity For Swallowing
Their Prey.

Inc dDlllIy OF SNAKES 10 perform
feats of swallowing their prey IS
astonishing. Recently a small boa,
scarcely four feet in length, with a
head no larger than a mans thumb,
swallowed a full-grown pigeon. The
keepers put the pigeon in the cage
at night, thinking that an Indian
python seven or eight feet long
would take it, but great swelling
in the body of the little boa showed
what had become of the bird AS 10
snake chews or rends his prey, It
passed his head and throat entire
The enlargement did not disappear
for a week.
Long Tom," a giant reticulated py-
thon, fed on a pig weighing forty
five pounds Wanting to get some
photographs of the monster reptile
taking large prey, the pig was put
in the den alive; but as his prey had
been killed for him in captivity, the
snake got frightened when the pig
began to move about and squeal, and
backed away. When the pig was
killed, and the reptile smelled the
: blood, he took the animal at once,
t and in twenty-five minutes it had dis
appeared. The pig is, however, an
easy object to swallow, compared
/ with a dense pelage of fur or featn-
t ers.
n For two or three days the stomach
+ was enlarged to almost the size Of a
/. beer key, but on the third day the
II swelling began to diminish, and b.
e the end of the fifth the body had re-
turned to its normal diameter. Con
-. snakes will generally soon learn to
y take their prey after it has been
killed. They are usually fed chick
= ems or rabbits, killed, but while still
=, warm. They have, however, been fed
with cold-storage rabbits that were
killed in Australia. Miss Grace Clark
the snake charmer, says that she
{ once had a snake that would take
g chicken after it was dressed and
/ cut into pieces, receiving the pieces
d one at a time. A few months age
the writer wanted to feed a very
large pigeon to a very small Indian
? python. In order to save him the
l. trouble of working over the shoul
ders, we cut off the wings. Aftel
IL gorging the bird, we offered him th'
Of wings, which he took and swallowed
The python which swallowed tn
pig was received from Carl Hagen
as beck. of Hamburg, Germany, in July
n 1907. He has a photograph of it Il
ne the act of swallowing in Indian ante
lope weighing over ninety pounds
Sc He had another reticulated pytho
Nv which swallowed a ninety-seveI
ay pound ibex. A python in the Cincil
Ia natl Geological Gardens swallowed
goat weighing forty-two pounds. A
." of the goat that passed intact wei
on the horns, the hoofs and a piece
he sash rope four feet long attached
IN, his neck.
Recently a big reticulated pythr
-, passed the hoofs of a pig. They we
shown to DIR. w. r. Hornaday, Il
director of the New York geologic
49,, Park, who identified them as Il
hoofs of the Bornean wild pig
about forty pounds weight. A shiI
captain, in bringing over a large
ticulated python, found in the eXcl
-, ment the quils of a Javan porcupir
~ lying in the same relative positi'
'u' they occupied on the animals bod
10. The reptile must have begun with |
III head. extending the coils backwa
over the body, and pressing the qui
down horizontally in their natuI
the state of rest. Evidently this is a 81
Ie" cies of prey a snake could not d
% gorge.
one The small snakes feed largely
frogs, toads and fish; the anacond
ooK feed extensively on fish; king snak
air and king cobras eat other species
ana snakes; but the writer has ne'
re- known a boa or python to take
ose cold-blooded animal. We often Ike
7on' small snakes and iguanas with
boas and pythons, but they ne'
his take any notice of them. In a ST.
had of nature their prey consists larg
was of small deer and antelopes, lam
She kids, pigs, other mammals weigh
less than 100 pounds, and any B
that may be large enough to attn