1810 The Zoologist— Septembeu, 1869. 



smaller and the rabbit more agitated, I perceived a stoat turning its 

 head with the rabbit's motion, and fixing its gaze upon it : I struck a 

 blow at the stoat, but missed it ; its attention was thus withdrawn, 

 and the rabbit ran away with great vigour in a straight direction. 



" On another occasion, walking up the hill above Tynehara towards 

 the sea, I was struck by the shrill cry and fluttering agitation of a 

 common hedgesparrow in a white-thorn bush. Regardless of my 

 presence, its remarkable motions were continued, getting at every hop 

 from bough to bough lower and lower down in the bush : drawing 

 nearer, I saw a common snake coiled up, but having its head erect 

 watching the bird. The moment the snake saw me it glided away, 

 and the hedgesparrow flew off" with its usual mode of flight." — 

 Henry Bond, Vicar of Petherlon. 



I need make no apology for recording the foregoing, although I 

 have been told that Mr. Frank Buckland has alluded to one of the 

 stories in one of his popular works. The power of fascination is now, 

 I believe, generally admitted, although I have not seen it previously 

 recorded of the stoat ; whilst the fact of the adder swallowing her 

 young and then disgorging is still with reason doubted by many, — 

 myself amongst the number ; and, in spite of the clearness with which 

 the tale is told, there is always a chance of optical delusion, and the . 

 more so when the act seen, or supposed to be seen, is held to be a 

 matter of course. But now to proceed to our Indian snakes. 



Dangers to the Poultry-yard in India, dc. — The following notes 

 were recorded at Bareli, in the N. W. Provinces, in 1854: — 



One moraing my fowlman came to me bringing a very large cobra 

 di capeUa, nearly four feet in length, which he had just killed in my 

 fowl-house. I had a separate division for the laying hens, and under 

 the door of this there would seem to have been a small crack, through 

 which, when thin, hungry and empty, this snake had squezed himself: 

 having entered, he went to the nests and in some way killed three fine 

 hens, and then swallowed four guinea-fowl's eggs one after another. 

 He now tried to make off, but could not return by the way he had 

 come, the hole being now too small for him, distended as he was by 

 the eggs he had eaten. The fowlman hearing the disturbance next 

 came in, and soon disposed of the snake by a well-aimed blow at his 

 head with a stick. I cut open the reptile, and took out three of the 

 eggs unbroken ; I had them set again, but I believe that the fowlman 

 broke them, the rearing of such fowls being held to be unlucky by the 

 natives. 



