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



delight in watching for and killing them. The white-necked stork 

 (Dissura episcopus) has similar tastes, for two English boys recently 

 told me that they once saw their cook, when cleaning a " beefsteak" 

 bird for the table, remove a snake from its crop. 



Family — Ardeidae. — Aitken* reports having seen the little egret 

 (Flerodias garzetta) trying to swallow a snake, and Ferguson, just 

 quoted, makes reference to herons exhibiting similar tastes. 



Class — Reptilia. 



We come now to another large class which numbers in its ranks 

 several whose partiality to a serpentine diet is well known. 



Order — Squamata. — Sub-order— Lacertilia. — Though lizards, like 

 frogs, constitute the snake's especial perquisite in the zoological 

 market, the tables are sometimes turned, and the larger lizai'ds 

 will assert their supremacy and practise ophiophagy, and, as will 

 be seen later, instances have been known where the frog, handi- 

 capped though it is in weapons of offence, has been known to 

 pay back some of the scores against its own kind by developing 

 serpentivorous habits. I have collected the following instances of lizards 

 dominating snakes. Mr. Gleadowf tells me he once saw a varan or 

 monitor lizard running off with a live snake, 3 or 4 feet long, in 

 its mouth, which it released on seeing him. He shot the snake, which 

 proved to be a cobra. DalrympleJ records a big iguana in S. 

 Australia doing battle royal with a whipsnake. The Eevd. J. H. R. 

 Fisk§ mentions a lizard in South Africa attacking and killing a 

 snake, and in the "Museum of Natural History "|| the following 

 appears: — "The Ammodyte, according to the testimony of M. Host, 

 appears to be a nocturnal species of serpent, and commits great havoe 

 amongst field mice, small birds, and many lizards. It falls a prey 

 itself, however, to one of that tribe of animals. The Scheltopusik 

 ( Pseudapus pallasii) is one of its most redoubtable and bloody enemies. 

 Shielded by its cuirass of tilelike, hard scales, it is proof against 

 the fangs of the viper, attacks it with impunity, and devours it at leisure." 



Sub-order — Ophidine. — Snakes, and especially certain species, are well 

 known to prey upon one another, and make no hesitation in commit- 



* The Common Birds of Bombay, p. 181. 



f " In Epistola." 



t " The Field," June 25th, 1904. 



§ "Proc. Zool. Soc, London, 1883, p. 32. 



|| Vol. II., p. 48 



