128 GEINERAL NOTES 



a distance and then suddenlv bit him in the neck until 

 the head was nearly severed from the body. 



How did the dog learn These tactics? 



An hour afterwards, our little party of three set out 

 for a walk aloni^ the AA'ynberg reservoirs, when to our 

 surprise the dog followed us, although we were pvTfect 

 strangers to him. About a mile from the cottage the dog 

 suddenly barked furiously and rushed into a patch of 

 tall grass. Some wild struggle followed in the grass until 

 after a little while the dog appeared running backwards, 

 while at the same time a large cobra reared his head 

 above the grass, the hood intlated. The fight between the 

 dog and the snake proceeded as in the morning, and after 

 a quarter of an hour or so the limj) body of the snake lay 

 at an open spot, the neck bitten through. 



I wondered again how the dog could have learned this 

 warfare, for he was evidently bent on snake htinting and 

 had probably stayed on the mountain for that purpose. 



The next day the dog followed us again and killed a 

 third cobra in the same way, thtis giving me an oppor- 

 tunit}^ of seeing more cobras on Table Mountain in two 

 days than I have met there during hundreds of visits 

 Avithin the last thirty years. 



But the story of the clever snake hunter does not end 

 there. AVhen the dog had finished the third cobra we 

 continued our walk along a narrow footpath; suddenly 

 I saw a Ij^rgad^ler nicely coiled np in front of me. Call- 

 ing out to my little son just behind me I left the path 

 and watched the dog, being verv curious to know how 



Footnote. — For those readers who do not know a berg- 

 addei' {fliiis ntropos) T may add that it has a short 

 stumpy tail like a puffadder and that it is only 12-10 

 inches long, but that its bite is quite as virulent as that 

 of the pufladder. This snake one meets more frequently 

 on the south-weslern mountains, hence I have destroyed 

 a good many. 



