SNAKE AND FROG PRATTLE 233 



the higher principles of Nature, and so learn how to 

 withstand influences inimical to his interests without 

 upsetting laws which tend to his welfare. 



Occasionally quite casual happenings and bare and 

 slight matters of fact show that those who study natural 

 history first-hand acquire information not to be obtained 

 from authoritative works. Let one instance concerning 

 the varied diet of the death adder be quoted, since it 

 confounds the experience of one of the most learned 

 men in Australia on the subject. On the beach just at 

 high-water mark, beneath an overhanging shrub, several 

 birds sounded an alarm, notifying by peculiar and per- 

 sistent screeching the presence of an enemy. After a 

 few minutes' search, for the strained attitudes of the 

 birds indicated the direction, a death adder was seen 

 gliding among thickly strewn brown leaves with a limp 

 bird between its jaws. It was quickly killed, and then 

 the bird, a dusky honey-eater, was seen to be dead. 

 Dusky honey-eaters generally spend their days among 

 the topmost sprays of flowering trees and shrubs, 

 while death adders habitually seek the seclusion of 

 the shadiest places on the surface of the soil. In this 

 case the adder was small, so small that it seemed to 

 be a vain if not impossible feat for it to swallow the 

 bird. 



Hitherto the food of the adder had been deemed to 

 be frogs, lizards, beetles, and such game of the ground. 

 Was it curiosity which brought the sun-loving bird 

 within reach of the shade-loving snake ? Upon the 

 incident being referred to Mr. Dudley Le Souef, who has 

 quite an uneasy familiarity with Australian snakes, 

 dating from the days of ardent youth, when he was wont 

 to carry some species about with him in his pockets, 

 that authority wrote : "I did not know that death adders 

 ever killed birds ; I did not think they were active enough, 



