AFRICAN SNAKE-EATER. 49 



and neck of this bird are capable of great extension, 

 and the shoulders are each armed with three strong, 

 rounded, bony protuberances, which enable it to 

 wage successful war against snakes, which it con- 

 stantly persecutes. It also feeds on young tor- 

 toises, lizards, -&C. and occasionally on locusts and 

 other insects. In the craw of one examined by 

 Monsieur Levaillant were found twenty-one young 

 tortoises, several of which were nearly two inches 

 in diameter ; three snakes of the length of a man's 

 arm, and an inch thick ; and eleven lizards of seven 

 or eight inches in length ; and in the stomach, 

 which was very large, was a ball of the size of a 

 goose-egg, formed entirely of the vertebrae of 

 snakes and lizards, the scales of tortoises, the wing- 

 shells of various beetles, and the wings and legs of 

 locusts. 



The Saake-eater is an inhabitant of dry open 

 plains in the lower parts of Africa. It is found 

 about the Cape of Good Hope, and in the country 

 of the CaiFres and Namaquas. Being almost 

 always obliged to run in pursuit of its prey, it 

 makes but little use of its power of flight. It 

 frequently kills, or at least totally disables a snake 

 with a single stroke of its wing, by breaking the 

 vertebrae. In its natural state it is extremely 

 wild, and very difficultly approached. The male 

 and female rarely quit each other. Those which 

 frequent the neighbourhood of the Cape construct 

 a very large nest or eyry on the top of some 

 high thicket, and line it with wool and feathers; 

 but towards the region of terra de Natal they 



v. vn. 4 



