50 AFRICAN SNAKE-EATER. 



build on lofty trees. The eggs are two or three 

 in number, white, with reddish specks, and about 

 the size of goose-eggs. 



When the Snake-eater is taken young, it may 

 be easily tamed, and may be kept with poultry in 

 the farm-yard, where it is serviceable in destroying 

 rats and various other noxious animals. It may 

 be fed with meat, either raw or dressed, and will 

 readily eat fish. If kept too long fasting, it is apt 

 to seize on small chickens and ducklings, which it 

 swallows whole, in their feathers. It is not how- 

 ever of a malignant disposition, and is generally 

 observed to interpose its authority in appeasing 

 the quarrels that happen among the other birds. 



