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THE HARMONIES OF NATURE. 



is a determined serpent-hunter ; and the secretary-bird is so 

 renowned for his exploits as a snake-killer that he has been 

 introduced into the West Indies for the purpose of exterminating 

 the terrible trigonocephalus, which, before he came to the rescue, 

 rendered working in the sugar-plantations so dangerous to the 

 negroes. 



In their combats with the snakes the birds evince an admir- 

 able instinct. Thus the buzzard is fully aware of the dangerous 

 bite of the adder, even when he has been caught quite young, 

 and has never before seen one of these terrible reptiles. He 

 aims at once at the head, and only begins to feast upon the body 

 after having previously crushed it. Harmless serpents, on the 



Mongoos (Herpestes Vilticollis). 



contrary, he will hold a long time in his talons, enjoying their 

 vain endeavours to escape or to molest their persecutor, and 

 then bite them indiscriminately either in the tail or in the head. 

 Who taught him this lesson ? who enabled him to distinguish 

 between creatures apparently so similar? who informed him 

 that here only an impotent rage exhausts itself in ineffectual 

 efforts, while there a deadly poison is to be avoided ? 



In the backwoods of America the rattlesnake everywhere dis- 

 appears before the advance of man, as the hog, the squatter's 

 invariable companion,, is its most formidable enemy, whom it 

 dreads so much that, on seeing one, it immediately loses all its 



