. Beasts and men, being Carl Hagenbeck's experiences for half a century among wild animals;. Animal training; Menageries; Zoological specimens; Zoos. REPTILES IN CAPTIVITY 179 dealing- with large prey I have no doubt that a full-grown Borneo python could easily swallow a man. Any snake of from eighteen to twenty feet long is strong enough to squeeze a man to death if only it can get him properly encircled in its coils. Some years ago a controversy was started in the English newspapers as to what length snakes might run to. It was alleged that there were kinds which reached thirty or forty feet
. Beasts and men, being Carl Hagenbeck's experiences for half a century among wild animals;. Animal training; Menageries; Zoological specimens; Zoos. REPTILES IN CAPTIVITY 179 dealing- with large prey I have no doubt that a full-grown Borneo python could easily swallow a man. Any snake of from eighteen to twenty feet long is strong enough to squeeze a man to death if only it can get him properly encircled in its coils. Some years ago a controversy was started in the English newspapers as to what length snakes might run to. It was alleged that there were kinds which reached thirty or forty feet, and one traveller offered to produce one in support of his statement if anybody would pay ^500 for it. As I happened to know that the largest snake ever seen was only twenty- six feet long, I thought I was justified in entering into this controversy; and through the agency of my English friends I offered not ^500 but ;^ 1,000 to any one who should bring to Hamburg a live and healthy snake thirty feet long- Up to the present time no such snake has arrived. The voracity of snakes is quite extraordinary. Until lately I had been accustomed to feed these creatures on fairly small animals, but a short time ago I gave to one of my Borneo giants a Chinese dwarf hog weighing fully fifty pounds, and this was demolished by the serpent in three- quarters of an hour. Soon after I had a further exhibition of the gastronomic ca- pacity of snakes. On this occasion the creature was an extremely large one, about twenty-five feet long. I gave him a goat weigh- ing thirty - one pounds which I thought would provide him with a pretty hearty 12 *. After Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Hagenbeck, Carl, 1844-1913. London, New York [etc. ] : Longmans, Green, and Co.
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectzoologi, bookyear1912
