138 



THE COMBAT. 



world uninhabitable by man, is continued throughout 

 the earth. Quadrupeds, and even man, take in it 

 but a feeble part. It is ever the war of the winged 

 Hercules. 



To him, indeed, inhabited regions owe all their 

 security. In the furthest Africa, at the Cape, the 

 good serpent-eater defends man against the reptiles. 

 Peaceable in disposition and gentle in aspect, he seems 

 to engage without passion in his dangerous encounters. 

 The gigantic jabiru does not labour less in the 

 deserts of Guiana, where man as yet ventures not 

 to live. Their perilous savannahs, alternately inun- 

 dated and parched, a dubious ocean teeming in the 

 \ \u t sunshine with a horrible population of monsters as 



\ CoT ye ^ unknown, possess, as their superior inhabitant, 



their intrepid scavenger, a noble bird of battle, 

 retaining some relics of the ancient weapons with 

 which the primeval birds were very probably pro- 



i u^ 



vided in their struggle against the dragon. These are 



a horn on the head, and a spur on each of the wings. 



With the first it stirs up, excites, and rouses out of the mud its 



enemy. The others serve as a guard and defence : the reptile 



