32 THE SNAKES OF SOUTH AFRICA. 



obtained really good specimens for my collections in this way. 

 Sometimes he would bring in snakes still writhing and wriggling. 

 Just before dusk one evening, I was wandering round with old 

 Tom at my heels, when a Puff Adder hissed warningly. Tom 

 sprang forward and faced the snake. Knowing he was well able 

 to take care of himself, and that he was by no means a tenderfoot, 

 I moved back a few paces and watched. He started by making 

 feints at the snake, which induced it to strike out furiously. 

 Old Tom seemed to be a mass of the finest springs. The agile 

 manner in which he sprang about and avoided the fierce forward 

 lunges of the snake filled me with admiration for him. After 

 about fifteen minutes the snake began to tire. Tom knew it 

 too, full well, for he now began to grow bolder, and struck two 

 or three severe blows with his forepaw. Once more the snake 

 lunged with gaping jaws and erect fangs. Missing its aim, its 

 head struck the earth with a thud. It was evidently spent, for 

 it made no attempt to draw back in readiness for another lunge. 

 Tom quickly finished it off by delivering a smashing blow 

 ■wdth his forepaw, which seemed to daze the reptile, for it allowed 

 the cat to seize it by the neck without showing further fight. 

 Dragging the snake's bod}?- along, my pluck}' old hunter laid it 

 at my feet, purring with evident pride. 



A few months after this event, Tom came home one evening 

 with a tremendously swollen head. He had evidently tackled 

 an adder which proved more than a match for him. We did 

 all we could for him, but he died within two hours. 



Snakes Eating Eggs. 



A story was published some j^ears ago in a boys' journal, of 

 a Cobra which disturbed a setting hen and swallowed five of her 

 eggs. The Cobra was killed, the unbroken eggs removed from 

 its interior, and replaced in the nest. Those eggs, in due time, 

 hatched out into fine healthy chicks. 



Unlike the usual stock snake stories, this one happens to 

 be true. I have the pleasure of knowing the gentleman who owned 

 the hen and the eggs. He was farming in Bechuanaland, and 

 had procured a setting of a specially good strain of Black j\Iinorca 

 eggs at considerable expense from Capetown. Observing the hen 

 walking about the farmyard in an unusually excited condition 

 and wondering why she did not return to her eggs, he got anxious. 



