524 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XV. 



No. X.— OCCURRENCE OF THE DWARF GOOSE 

 (ANSEli ERYTHROPUS)- IN ASSAM. 



On the 28th October I had a specimen of this rare goose sent to me for 

 identification. It was shot by Mr. R. Johnston at Sooherating, Lakhimpur. 



The bird is a young male, in very fine plumage, but the black on the breast 

 ill-defined and in patches mixed with grey. Feet bright chrome yellow. Bill 

 livid green, the nail still paler. 



E. 0. STUART BAKER. 



Dibrugakh, 9th November 1903. 



No. XI— CANNIBALISM IN SNAKES. 



In the Bombay Natural History Society's Journal, Vol. XIV, page 395, is a 

 very interesting little note on cannibalism in snakes by Mr. W. S. Millard, in 

 which examples of this depraved instinct are cited, the offenders mentioned 

 being the hamadryad (Naia bungarus), the cobra (Naia tripudians), the common 

 krait of India (Bungarus candidus), and ihe python (Python molurus). 



I think it is generally accepted that snakes form the staple, if not exclusive, 

 diet of the hamadryad, and there is good reason to suppose that they form the 

 usual food in the kraits. 



Giinther in his '' Reptiles of British India," page 342, says the Bungarus feeds 

 on " small mammals, lizards, small snakes, and toads," but I believe snakes will 

 be found to be more generally ingested. In support of this view I will quote 

 the following : — 



Giinther in the same work alluded to above, page 344, says he has found 

 " uropeltides" in the stomach of the Ceylon krait (Bungarus ceylonicus), and 

 Mr. Blyth in "Ceylon" by an old officer, Vol. II, page 196, refers to Dr. 

 Giinther finding a uropeltis inside a Ceylon krait. Major G. H. Evans, in a note 

 in the B. N. H. S. Journal, Vol. XIV, page 599, mentions a banded krait 

 (Bungarus fasciatus) eating a common paddy-field snake (Tropidonotus piscator). 



In the B. N. H. S. Journal, Vol. X, page 7, Mr. Ferguson says of the krait 

 (Bungarus ccerulcus) or, as it is now known, (Bungarus candidus), that it feeds 

 readily on snakes, and mentions one occasion when it devoured another snake 

 made captive with it, and records another killed with the tail of a rat-snake 

 protruding from its jaws. 



Mr. F. B. Simson in " Letters on Sport in Eastern Bengal," page 24(3, narrates 

 finding a banded krait (Bungarus fasciatus') with a snake nearly as large as itself 

 inside it. 



Cannibalism is, I believe, a distinctly unusual trait in the character of other 

 snakes, but I have collected a few examples which I subjoin. 



In Trichinopoly in 1896 I had a cobra (Naia trijjudians) brought to me dead, 

 killed in the well of the 23rd Madras Infantry Mess, which had nearly com- 

 pleted swallowing a common brown tree-snake (Dipsadomorphus trigonata). 

 Mr. S. S. Flower in the Proc. Zool. Soc, Lond., December 1st, 1896, page 894, 



