Snake crossing

The Sydney Morning Herald reported an alarming traffic hazard on 18 December 1911: “Just as a tram from the Spit had reached Balgowlah Heights on Saturday afternoon, the passengers on the front seat saw a huge brown snake bearing down the track towards them. Its quarry was a large lizard, and so preoccupied was it with the prospect of the prospective meal, that it left the tram out of its calculations. The lizard passed under the tram, and the snake, but a couple of feet behind, followed. The tram-driver, anxious to be in at the kill, pulled up short, and with some passengers, rushed back along the track. But the kill was over. The lizard escaped, so far as the tram was concerned, but the snake, 5 feet long at least, had been cut in three pieces by the wheels.”