390 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVII. 



Ferguson alludes to going off with a snake.* Swayslandf also attri- 

 butes anguine tastes to the kite. The Brahminy kite (Haliastur i?idus), 

 according to an article in the Cyclopedia of India,! is credited with a 

 similar habit, for it says: " In the South of India, the accepted type of 

 G-aruda is the common Brahminy kite * * * This bird pounces upon, 

 and carries off the cobra in its claws, and kills it." Aitken§ has a 

 picture of a harrier descending upon a snake. It is no uncommon event 

 for sportsmen in this country to witness eagles, kites, and other pre- 

 daceous birds descend into the jheel, or marsh, and bear away a snake 

 wriggling in their grasp. 



Order — Ratitae. — HartwigH ascribes serpentivorous habits to the 

 "American ostriches" or rheas. 



Order — Gallinse. — The galline birds, like the accipitrine, contribute 

 very largely to the decimation of these limbless vertebrates. The 

 peafowl (Pavo cristatus) is well known to show a partiality to this 

 fare, and in Ceylon I have known people keep tame peafowls with 

 the idea of keeping their premises free from snakes. Bennett, who 

 lived in the south-eastern part of that Island, ascribed the paucity 

 of snakes in the jungle to the abundance of the peafowl whose 

 partiality to snakes, he says, renders them the chief destroyers of these 

 reptiles. Hume and Marshall^ record the cook on one occasion 

 removing a small snake about 8 inches long from the stomach of one of 

 these birds. 



Tennent** says that snakes are frequently eaten by the common barn 

 cloor fowl in Ceylon, and opines, that the jungle species behave simi- 

 larly. Driebergft mentions having observed a pullet on one occasion 

 in Ceylon (Gokarella) pursuing a snake 12 to 15 inches long, which it 

 killed and swallowed, and though a novel experience to him he ascer- 

 tained from the resthouse-keeper and others that it is a common event, 

 and that the village poultry, as a rule, attack and make a meal of 

 them. Mr. P. Mackinnon told me recently that on one occasion in 



" Bom. Nat. Hist. Soc. Jour., Vol. X, p. 1. 



t " Familiar Wild Birds," p. 111. 



% Vol. V, p. 229. 



§ " The Common Birds of Bombay," p. 15. 



|| " The Tropical World," p. 321. 



^1 *' Game Birds of India, Burmah and Ceylon," p. 87, 

 • • Nat. Hist, of Ceylon, p. 295. 

 ft Spolia Zeylanica, Vol. Ill, p. 20?. 



