Pacific Nature Notes

By “Raimanu.”

Snakes In The Eastern Pacific: An

interesting note has come in from a reader in Samoa. Mr. D. V. Lee, of Vaipouli Boys’ School, Fagamalo, Savai’i. He writes: “The photograph is of a 4 ft. snake, the largest found of several caught about the school compound. It would appear that Savai’i has many of this type, possibly more than has the other island. Upolu. Although not venomous,this specimen was very active, and struck at my daughter who went too close, puncturing her skin with its teeth. It is

interesting to note that when climbing a tree a snake—this type anyway—does not coil itself around a limb, but moves in a series of U’s with only the tip of its tail around the branch. It can therefore re lease itself almost immediately from a branch whenever inclined. It felt so inclined as soon as I left to put away my camera, and I was thus prevented from preserving the finest specimen I have so far seen.”

Mr. Lee’s letter opens up the question on snakes generally in the islands. As with mammals and birds, so with the reptiles, the general rule seems to apply, that as you go further east, and so further away from the big land masses, the variety of fauna decreases. Indo nesia has the king cobra of Asia, at least as far as Sumatra, Java and Borneo.

By the time you get to New Guinea the cobra has disappeared, though the death-adder is found; and the pythons continue on into the Solomons and New Hebrides, with some other smaller species as well.

But once you pass on east to Fiji and the rest of the Islands, venomous snakes seem unknown. Here in Fiji, snakes are still found, though apparently less easily

The Western Samoan Snake.

where the mongoose occurs. But none appear to be really dangerous. Derrick writes of having seen native children handling a full-grown specimen with impunity.

Even before the advent of the mongoose there seems to have been some difference of opinion as to how plentiful these reptiles were in Fiji. William Lockerby in Western Vuna Levu in 1808, had an unenviable experience when, with a com panion. he was benighted in thick forest.

“Our distressful situation,” he wrote, ‘‘was made still more intolerable by the immense number of the largest kind of snakes we disturbed and which kept hissing about us.” In fairness to Lockerby it ought to be mentioned that he appears to have taken nothing more intoxicating than breadfruit during the afternoon.

By contrast we note that Mrs. Gordon Gumming, in extensive travelling in Fiji in 1875-1877, saw only two snakes, and both were probably the harmless “dadakulathi” of the shore.

Personally, in three years on one of the Lau Islands, where there are no mongoose, I saw only two, a black one of some four feet long which had been killed; and a smaller one of a light brown colour, which was in the top of a coconut tree. However, the people of Moala assured me that there are many there, especially in their yam gardens.

But to get back to our Samoan snake.

It is evidently the tree-climbing type.

There are plenty of tree snakes in North Queensland, even within a few miles of Townsville. Troops from the south who

camped there during the war well re member them. They seem to have a very wide distribution, and some interesting facts are related concerning them.

In Borneo, for example, is a snake which flies. At least, it takes flying leaps from tree to tree, supporting itself in mid-air by drawing up the belly till it nearly touches the backbone, the body thus flattened giving it support from the air. It resembles a split bamboo in flight.

But from the Amazon area of South America comes another story quite as good. It is said of the tree-snakes there, that if one happens to fall when travelling through the branches, it will coil its body and tail like a watch-spring and land safely on the spiral, so breaking its fall. Now, I’ve seen a few tree-snakes, but I have yet to see one behave like that. Perhaps another reader can tell us if our Pacific Island specimens have learnt the trick? fl Dr. Pierre Cassiau, appointed in January as Chief of the Service of Hygiene, lost no time in instituting a “Cleaner Papeete” drive in Tahiti.

Strict measures are being taken to

ensure clean public premises,

restaurants, etc. The doctor has personally attended the market early each morning to carry out a close inspection of footstuffs before they are released for sale to the public. He is a son of the late Dr.

Fernand Cassiau, once Mayor of Papeete, and health inspector dur ing World War I.