Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

The story of the late marvelous feast of the Anaconda in the New York Museum, in swallowing a seven quarter blanket, is fully confirmed by the testimony of Mr. Peale, who avers that his snakeship does not appear to be in the least degree inconvenienced by this extraordinary supper. A still more extraordinary story is related by the New York Times. It is as follows:
A number of years ago, a gentleman who had charge of a public Museum in Baltimore, exhibited among his other living curiosities, a couple of beautiful garter snakes. There, is something about a garter snake peculiarly attractive, perhaps from the associations connected with its name. They are the most voracious of all the small sized snake family, and pounce upon their prey like starved hawks. They have a truly French appetite for frogs, and it was upon these slimy amphibians that the garter snakes in question chiefly made their suppers. The keeper of the Museum was one evening giving them their daily rations, when he observed that the big snake was so voracious as to devour all the little snake’s supper. He accordingly separated the two animals by a thin partition, and threw a frog to the younger and weaker of the two. The little snake seized the animal and commenced swallowing it, and had succeeded in bagging its head, fore paws, and the greater part of its body, when the partition was taken away, and the big snake made a dash at the hind legs of the frog, which yet protruded from the mouth of his younger brother. He obtained a heavy grip of these projecting members, and slowly swallowed his way towards the head of his supper companion, who clung sturdily to his savory mouthful.
The heads of the two animals met, and the issue of the struggle for a moment seemed doubtful, when the big snake’s mouth expanded and slowly closed on the head of the small one, and again he went rejoicing on his swallowing course. Slowly but surely he went ahead, the longitudinal dimensions of the young serpent constantly becoming less as they sucked into his maw, until he had swallowed him from nose to tail. After displaying this unnatural preference for their own flesh and blood, the garter snake coiled himself up for his nap, and took a comfortable snooze. The next morning the keeper called to view “the two single gentlemen rolled into one,” when to his astonishment, he found that the younger snake had left his close quarters and was rolling about by the side of his big playmate. The only reasonable way of accounting for the manner in which he had managed to leave his prison house is, that he coiled himself regularly round and left his lodgings by the same door through which he entered them. He could not have backed out for his scales would not have permitted him, nor was an egress in any other manner at all possible. The fate of the poor frog was a matter of grave speculation; but the probability is, that the little snake held fast to him and secured not only a snug night’s lodging, but a hearty supper.
The above account is strictly authentic. We received it from a gentleman who was an eye witness to the transaction. Immediately after its occurrence, he prepared a statement for one of the journals of the day, but he was dissuaded from publishing it on the ground that it was too marvelous to be believed. As the late feat of the Anaconda has opened the eyes of the public to what snakes can do, we publish it as a well substantiated snake story.