SlATELY FACE AND MAGNANIMOUS MINDE iii 



birds for the fierce-looking fellow who spends most of his 

 time fishing, until direct and conclusive evidence was 

 forthcoming. Two days of rough weather, and the blue 

 bay had become discoloured with mud churned up by the 

 sea, and the eagle found fishing poor and unremunerative 

 sport. Even his keen eyesight could not distinguish in the 

 murky water the coming and going of the fish. Just 

 below the house is a small area of partly cleared flat, 

 and there we saw the brave fellow roaming and scoop- 

 ing about with more than usual interest in the affairs of 

 dry land. At this time of year green snakes are fairly 

 plentiful. Harmless and handsome, they prey upon small 

 birds and frogs, and the eagle had abandoned his patrol of 

 the sad-hued water to take toll of the snakes. After a 

 graceful swoop down to the tips of a low-growing bush, he 

 alighted on the dead branch of a bloodwood 150 

 yards or so away, and, with the help of a telescope, 

 his occupation was revealed — he was greedily tearing 

 to pieces a wriggling snake, gulping it in three-quarter- 

 yard lengths. Here was the reason for the trustfulness 

 and respect of the little birds. The eagle was destroying 

 the chief bugbear of their existence — ^the sneaking greeny- 

 yellowy murderer of their kind and eater of their eggs, 

 whose colour and form so harmonises with leaves and thin 

 branches that he constantly evades the sharpest-eyed of 

 them all, and squeezes out their lives and swallows them 

 whole. But the big red detective could see the vile thing 

 50 and even 100 yards away, and once seen — well, 

 one enemy the less. Briskly stropping his beak on the 

 branch of the tree on which he rested, and setting his 

 breast plumage in order, much as one might shake a 

 crumb from his waistcoat, the eagle adjusted his search- 

 lights and sat motionless. In five minutes a slight jerk of 

 the neck indicated a successful observation, and he soared 

 out, wheeled like a flash, and half turning on his side, hustled 

 down in the foliage of a tall wattle and back again to his 

 perch. Another snake was crumpled up in his talons, and 

 he devoured it in writhing, twirling pieces. The telescope 



