HOW SNAKES EAT

(FROM SNAKES.)

BY CATHERINE C. HOPLEY.

[Illustration:  HAMADRYAD SNAKE.]

The Hamadryad’s appointed diet is one ring-snake per week; but “Ophi,” as we now call him, is occasionally required—­and with no sacrifice of his principles either—­to eat an extra snake to satisfy the curiosity of some distinguished visitor.  Sometimes, too, colubers are plentiful, and two small ones are not too much for his ten or twelve feet of appetite.  This splendid serpent has rewarded care by remaining in perfect health, and growing several feet.  He was between eight and nine feet long when he came, and is now not far short of twelve and proportionately larger in circumference.  Sometimes during winter, when ring-snakes are scarce, “Ophi” is compelled to fast; for he is not then to be tempted with other food.  During the first year of his residence in the Gardens, the supply was good, and he ate no less than eighty-two fellow-creatures before the winter was well over.  Towards spring, however, the supply ran short, and only two more remained for him.  He had now fasted two entire weeks, and looked hungry and eager.  The keeper offered him a guinea-pig, at which he took great offence, raising his hood and hissing angrily for a long while.  Eggs he declined, also a lizard and a rat, in great disgust.  In India the Ophiophagi are said to feed on lizards and fish occasionally, but our Ophiophagus preferred to fast.  At last one of the two ring-snakes was produced, and Ophio was to be regaled.  It was the 31st of March, 1876, and he had been a denizen of the Gardens just one year.  My note-book informs me that it was a lovely, soft spring day, and that Ophio was quite lively.  He had rejected frogs on his own account, but in the uncertainty of more ring-snakes arriving, he was now decoyed into eating half a dozen.  Holland contrived that the snake destined for his dinner should answer the purpose of a feast, and had allowed it to eat as many frogs as it chose.  Like the poor wretch who, doomed to the gallows, is permitted to fare sumptuously the last morning of his life, the ring-snake ate three frogs, by which the Ophiophagus was to derive chief benefit; he, all unconscious of the cause of his victim’s unusual plumpness, swallowed him speedily.

Soon after this Ophio doffed his winter coat entire, and having again fasted for ten days, was at once rewarded by the last remaining ring-snake in a similarly plethoric condition, namely, with three more frogs inside him.  Now and then during the winter months the scarcity of ring-snakes has compelled the sacrifice of some far rarer colubers to Ophio’s cannibal tastes.  And yet each year we hear of hundreds of ring-snakes being ruthlessly killed in country districts, while at great cost and trouble others are purchased or brought from the Continent for the Hamadryad’s sustenance.  Lord Lilford, one of the Ophidarium’s best patrons, sometimes sends presents of game in the shape of ring-snakes to the Hamadryad.