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Show A 31 ARRET FOR SNAKES. NEW YORK HAS A WELL KEPT SNAKERY AT HOME. Interesting Information on a Somewhat lnpteaaant Huljeot Habits of the Wriggling Keptllet to be been There. New York is the chief snake market of the continent. Donald Burn is known as the king of the snake trade, says tho Sun. You would not suspect It bv the appearance of his little shop with its walls lined with tiers of cages with monkeys, parrots, and birds of every sort, with a few "great" cats and a couple of big clumsy tapirs thrown in. But if you convince Mr. Burns that you really want to see snakes, he will take you up stairs into a quiet back room and show you enough to affect your dreams for a month. He will also tell you some very interesting things about his stealthy crawling live stock. He will even allow you to hold a fourteen-foot boa constrictor in your lap if you insist upon it. That upstairs up-stairs back room has a large cage in one end of it, with some cross bars inside, supported on stout poles like a thick set chicken roost On the floor is a good-sized tub of clean water. There are snakes enough in this cage to seriously impair the saloon business of tho whole Fourth ward if they should be turned loose in the streets. There is not a snake there less than four feet long, und there are some big fellows ot twelve and .fourteen, which weigh from forty to fifty pounds each. Most of them are boas and pythons. None are poisonous, but the big ones can bite viciously when they feel like it. Mr. Burns and his assistant handle them with impunity, being always careful to grasp them with one hand firmly just below the head. These snakes, in their native wilds, live in trees from which they leap down upon their prey. Consequently most of them climb up upon the perches or roosts in the cage, where they twist themselves all around the wooden bars and around each other. Those crowded off the roosts stretch themselves lazily on the floor. There are also half a dozen in the tub of water, for snakes uro very cleanly in their habits nnd bathe every day. You will notice that some of the snakes appear stout, almost distended, while others are very slim. Tho stout ones aro still and somnolent, while tho slim ones are nervous and move about The stout snakes have fed recently. That big one in the corner has four rabbits and a hen tucked away inside of him, which he only devoured a few days ago. If you look sharply you will discover discov-er several forlorn white mice in the cage which have so tar escaped the appetite of tho snakes. They are all that are left of a good many mice put there several days ago. These littlo follows are huddled together in a corner cor-ner In an awful state of fright. Nothing Noth-ing will Induce them to advance an inch nearer the snakes. If you try to push them away from the wire netting they will seize it with their legs and hang fast like grim death. Some of them have climed up tho netting to the top of tho cnge, where they cling fast in abject terror. If the littlo mice only knew it they are safe from those larger boas prowling prowl-ing around tho cage. These big fellows fel-lows disdain to notice such small game. Nothing less than a rabbit, or at least a largo rat is worthy of their appetites. appe-tites. Before long, however, some of those four or five foot snakes will feel hungry and relieve the trembling mice of their misery and lives at the same time. Snakes will not touch dead food. They must find their game alive, and kill it themselves. A boa strikes its prey viciously. Holding fast by its great jaws, it wraps its powerful coils about the body and squeezes out its life. Then it breaks all the bones in the same terrible vise, and having reduced re-duced the body to a rag, it gorges it The snake's throat and body are capable capa-ble of enormous distention. When gorged the boa crawls to some quiet spot and lios down for a week or so to digest it. |