| Show A BOAS CLEVER clevea TRICK the silent capture of an un suspecting sparrow vr A sight right very seldom seen by any but professional naturalists natura lists was observed the other day in a german zoological collection the boa constrictor is is a non noa snake and kills hills its prey by squeezing it to death A young boa had been kept in a cage over a week with three sparrows without taking tal cing any notice of the presence of the birds nor did the latter manifest any fright of the reptile one day says the philadelphia the snake appeared to watch the movements of the birds then picking seeds off the floor of the cage and slowly began 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 beconi becoming ng more inore and more disenza disengaged ged but its head still remaining at considerable distance from the floor all of a sudden the forward part oi of the snakes ngod body y I 1 shot hot downward with lightning rapidity grasping one of the unsuspecting birds not with the mouth but with a rapid twist of the body crushing it at the same time until quite lifeless this was done so quickly and noiselessly that the other birds never noticed the absence be 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 |
