Vegetable substances have been found in snakes, from which it has been argued that they sometimes eat vegetables. But it rather argues that they don’t digest vegetables, which have probably been swallowed in the stomach of a rabbit or some other herbivorous animal that they have caught.
An indifference to food was noticeable in the snakes in ungenial weather. One cold, raw, foggy day in October 1873, a python caught a duck and partially coiled it, but so feebly that the bird, after passively submitting for a time, at last disengaged her feet and walked away to shake herself, and then turn and stare as if to discover what possibly had kept her there.
A similar disinclination to exert themselves was seen that same chilly day in the largest cage, where were three large pythons. One of them having killed a duck, could not get a satisfactory hold of its head, and let go repeatedly. Another held a duck, but not to crush it or hurt it; for it, like the one above named, only gazed deliberately around, and as if asking the meaning of its detention. A third duck was put into the den for the third python, who, however, only lazily stared at it and made no attempt to seize it; while the bird gazed in astonishment at the one in the embrace of the other snake, as if to inquire, ‘What are you doing there?’ Presently this duck also got away, and was again caught and only partially coiled. The python seemed too large and fat to constrict so small a thing as a duck. It was like tying up a pill-box with a rope. Some of the spectators expressed satisfaction that the duck was not more tightly coiled, and hoped it would succeed in getting away (the duck was not worth two shillings, the python could not be bought for twenty pounds), and were far more horrified when a vigorous constrictor caught and killed its prey in one flash, as when an extended watch-spring flies back to its original position. But a half-constricted creature does suffer, and happily this does not often occur, the chilly weather that day diminishing ophidian energy considerably. A gentleman, disappointed because they did not eat, and wishing to assign some reason for such unaccountable abstinence, remarked to his friend, ‘I have an idea they sting themselves.’
Watching these gigantic ophidians on one of those half-wintry days, it happened that two of them were lazily gliding, partially hidden by their blanket, and with neither heads nor tails visible, so that the two bodies seemed as only one snake. Two youths stood watching and vainly endeavouring to calculate the numbers of feet or of yards which were entwined and entwisted in those moving coils. Portions and loops of two other pythons in the same cage were visible beyond the rug, but only one head of all the four snakes was to be seen; and to distinguish to which of the gliding, shining curves that head belonged, was impossible. ‘It seems to me that snake’s such a length that he doesn’t know the other part belongs to him,’ remarked one boy to his friend.
‘I don’t think he knows where it is,’ returned the other boy sympathetically.
Not a little are the keepers sometimes tried in replying to the inquiries of visitors desirous of improving their minds. Let me repeat one or two conversations overheard on those Fridays.
‘Is that duck put in there for the snake to eat?’ asked a respectably dressed man of the keeper on one of those autumnal days, when a duck sat pluming itself as if settling itself for the evening.
‘Yes, sir,’ replied the keeper.
‘Will he swallow it whole?’
‘Yes, sir.’