Snakes
perfectly all right with no sign of the attack apart from a V mark of small healed holes!
My third python I caught crossing a path in the pouring rain at night. This time I was very careful and did not even use a stick. I stopped the Land Rover and with my boy and a sack, I held a torch behind his head, and then closer and closer , so that he could not see what was behind him I gently held him by his neck and tilted him into the sack the boy was holding and he never struggled at all, never got frightened and I took him into Salisbury (Harari) and gave him to the Snake Park,and I expect he is still there.
Should any of you want to keep a python and want to know what to do, here are a few tips. Get a deep tea chest or something similar and keep him covered in the dark for a few days. Just leave him alone. After then you can start feeding him on live food such as half a dozen froga. See the rate he eats them and when they have all gone give him a few more. Then you can give him pieces of meat about 1 – 2 inches square, nice red meat and he will like that and the feeding problem is solved although I do like to give them also whole chickens or rats as the fur and feathers help digestion. Pythons can go a couple of months without food as their metabolism can be slowed in reptilian fashion, but well fed they grow fast. They do need a plentiful supply of water to hand as they drink a lot and must never be left thirsty.
Finally I must end these notes with memories of Hugoland Estate, in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Close to the factory was a substantial building that was a series of stores. I one room we kept rice for the labour who would come and receive a weekly allowance Around the store sparrows abounded nesting in the trees and bushes of the Factory Garden and in the roof guttering. But about once a month or so at around 10 o’clock in the morning a large cobra would appear in front of the store room door. All the labour recognised this snake and the first to see it would immediately report to the Tea Maker Mr Ponnambalam a large fat man, who would come out with his bunch of keys and open the store room door whch would then be left ajar. The cobra would re- emerge about an hour or so later and by counting the lumps on his body it was possible to determine how many rats he had caught. He would then meander around the bushes and guttering searching out sparrows eggs, and then would disappear for another month or six weeks. The Sinhalese will never kill a cobra as although they are extremely poisonous they are considered sacred, as their hood was reputed to have shaded Lord Buddha under the Bo Tree ( a variety of fig that has a leaf similar in shape to a cobra’s head). The Ceylon cobras do not spit venom, like their African cousins, and tend to keep to themselves.
My Uncle Frank Harris was once working on Blackwood Estate, Haputale a locality very steep and covered in enormous boulders which sheltered and were home to a profusion of snakes. The Tamils would kill them and they noted that whenever one was killed very shortly after another would appear, and would also get killed. My Aunt Helen realised quickly that it was looking for its mate and gave instructions not to have it molested in any way. This snake appeared quite pathetic in the way it would go around the house and grounds searching for its mate, and I am sure there is a considerable degree of affection between them and I believe it when I am told that they mate for life. My view on snakes is that whilst I will kill them in towns or where there are children, in the bush it is far better to see them free in their own environment.
Once in Ceylon I was witness to a pair of rat-snakes about 8 or 9 ft long mating. They are reputed to be non-venomous, unless you stick your finger down it ‘s throat! The two that I saw happened to be on the side of the road on short grass in the low-country dry zone Their tails were completely intertwined like a pair of corkscrews up to the point of coition, and from there their heads were raised in the air as they repeatedly stroked each others chins with the top of their heads. They moved and writhed sinuously with great affection with their muscular ripples flowing up their bodies in a gentle rhythmic motion that was fascinatingly elegant. I wished that I could have used a cine camera to capture the event, which in any case was a once in a lifetime experience.