Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 November 1892 — King of Serpents. [ARTICLE]

King of Serpents.

The largest serpent of which any accurate measurements have been taken and noted was an anaconda which Dr. Gardner found dead and suspended to the fork of a tree during his travels in Mexico. It was dragged out into the open by two horses and was found to be thir-ty-seven feet in length. Inside of it were discovered the bones and flesh of a horse in a half-digested state,, and there was no doubt that it had swallowed the animal whole. Dr. Gardner and other travelers say that anacondas, pythons and boas attain a length of over forty feet, but there is no recorded instance of one having been encountered longer than that wUeh has been mentioned, though many person* have seen serpents alive which they estimate to be of considerably greater size.—[Chicage ’