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These horrible reptiles are of all sizes, from the large carpet snake of twenty feet, to the little rock viper of scarcely half a dozen inches. The great majority of these are venomous, and are of too many different kinds for me to attempt their enumeration here. The most common with us were the brown, black, and whip snakes, and the death-adder, all poisonous; and the carpet-snake, harmless.
Charlie set some snares with equal ill-success, but the following day Godfrey got a fine kangaroo, and a carpet-snake over nine feet in length. What we did not eat of the former at the first sitting, was dried in strips in the sun and kept for future use.
The carpet-snake is occasionally kept in the house or in the barn to destroy mice and other small vermin. Lizards in great variety are found in Australia, the chief being one incorrectly called an iguana, which colloquial slang has changed to 'goanna. The 'goanna is an altogether repulsive creature. It feasts on carrion, on the eggs of birds, on birds themselves, on the young of any creature.
The snake folk, brown, tiger, carpet, diamond, black, and death adder he came to know them all, from a very respectful distance; and he studied their habits and methods of progression, and of hunting, with the deepest interest. For instance, on one occasion, towards evening, Finn saw a carpet-snake pin a big kangaroo-rat, close to a fallen log.
And the rest of the pack fared quite tolerably well, sharing between them a kangaroo-rat, two bandicoots, a wallaby-hare, and quite a considerable number of marsupial mice, besides about half of a big carpet-snake which Finn killed. For a week now the little pack travelled on in a north-westerly direction, and every day old Tufter growled a little more bitterly and with a little better cause.
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