192 HABITS AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS. CHAP. VI. 



bird would be unequal to lift such a weight from the 

 ground, but that it has, providentially, no such habits. 

 It is a bird, nevertheless, much to be dreaded by the 

 husbandman ; for baron Humboldt says it will fre- 

 quently attack the calves, and tear out their tongue and 

 eyes. Similar stories are told, and believed, by the 

 common people, of the Lammer-geyer, or great bearded 

 vulture of the Alps, yet they have never been fully 

 authenticated. Bishop Heber was told that the great 

 eagles inhabiting the summit of the rocks round the 

 Himalaya mountains, sometimes carried away the poor 

 naked children of the peasants j but this is mentioned 

 only as a popular belief, not as a fact vouched for.* 

 On the whole, therefore, we may safely pronounce that 

 there is no bird existing, which will inflict wanton and 

 unprovoked injury upon man, although there are 

 several which, in self-defence, can do him serious 

 bodily harm. The cassowary, indeed, has been said to 

 attack people unprovoked t, and to inflict severe wounds 

 by the strong bony excrescence with which its front is 

 crested, like unto a helmet ; but this is probably done 

 during the season of courtship only ; for this bird is 

 gallinaceous, feeding only upon vegetable substances, 

 and it is, therefore, highly improbable that it would 

 attack man with any deadly intention. 



(207.) From the class of REPTILES, however, we 

 have much to fear ; for though, with few exceptions, 

 they are small in comparison to the size of the ferocious 

 quadrupeds, they can inflict death in a, form nearly as 

 dreadful. We shall arrange these under two heads ; 

 first, the crocodiles, which attack man as their natural 

 prey ; and, secondly, the serpents, which accomplish his 

 death by poison. We may, however, remark, that the 

 tortoises, which also belong to this class, are, if unpro- 

 voked, a harmless race, yet, in self-defence, they can 

 not only inflict severe wounds, but effect the amputa- 

 tion of a finger. Their jaws, indeed, are without teeth, 



* Heber's Journal, vol. i. p. 499. 

 ; f Orient. Mem. vol. ii. p. 186. 



