Show A EOAS CLEVER TRICK I 1 tho serpents silent cantaro or an cn sparrow A very seldom seen by any but professional naturalists natura lists was observed the other day in a german zoological collection the boa constrictor is a nonpoisonous non poisonous snake and kills its prey by squeezing it to death A young boa had been kept in a case over a week with three sparrows without taking any notice of the presence of the birds nor dill latter manifest any fright of alie reptile one day says the philadelphia il ecord tho inako appeared to abo movements of the birds then picking seeds of the bloor of the cage and slowly bean to unwind from the branch of the tree on which it spent most of the time almost imperceptibly the loops on the tree disappeared the body of the snake mora and more but its head still remaining at considerable distance from the floor all of a sudden the forward part of the inako a body shot downward with lightning rapidity ff one of th birds not with the month but with a rapid twist of the body crushing it at the same time until quite lifeless thi was done so and noiselessly that the other birds never noticed the absence of the victim the boa then returned to the tree above and after a little preparation of further pressing the bird and covering it with mucus it proceeded to swallow its prey without biting or chewing As the boas always take their food at night or in the dark this spectacle was thought very curious |