BIRD-NOTES 71 



I found by autopsy that the gizzard had become as 

 a result of an unnatural food so soft and flaccid that 

 a bone of one of the ingested carcases had penetrated 

 its wall, and peritonitis had ensued. This case is 

 parallel with the classic one of John Hunter's Sea-Gull. 



The Adjutant Bird is by no means so common in 

 Borneo as it is in some parts of India, where it serves 

 the useful purpose of general scavenger. The bird has 

 a very raffish and dissipated look, and one that lived in 

 captivity or perhaps I should say under surveillance 

 in the Museum compound was always alluded to by a 

 friend of mine as " that bird of yours which looks like 

 a drunken parson." The black and white plumage, the 

 bald head with sparse hair-like feathers on the back 

 of the neck and the fishy eye suggested the resemblance, 

 and when the bird stalked about the lawns in front of 

 my house, it bore certainly a comical resemblance to a 

 stooping old gentleman in a black tail-coat and white 

 shirt-front with his hands behind his back. 



The Adjutant is a most voracious feeder and is 

 practically omnivorous. One day a Malay brought me 

 for the Museum collections a snake about 5 feet long, 

 but as there was already an abundance of examples of 

 this species in the Museum, I cut the newly acquired 

 specimen in two and gave one half to my Adjutant Bird, 

 the other to a Sea-Eagle which was at that time a guest 

 of mine. The Adjutant, after a few preliminary pecks 

 at the snake, seized one end of it, and, with a little 

 shaking of the head and prodigious gulpings, bolted 

 it whole ; the Sea-Eagle was still tearing at his moiety 

 of the snake twelve hours later. Adjutants soon attach 

 themselves to their human friends, and become so 

 tame that there is no need to confine them in 



