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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



June, 1907 



Birds that Kill Snakes 



By W. C. Fitz-Gerald 



F WHAT use are snakes?" is a question 

 often asked by the student of Nature. They 

 do not gratify the esthetic sense, as other 

 useless creatures do, but are loathly and 

 pernicious, and altogether a mistake. 

 Surely they are one of Nature's abortions 

 or failures? Every other created thing 

 views them with horror — men and monkeys, beasts of prey, 

 and reptiles, and birds. Not to mention the owls, kites, car- 

 rion crows, and ravens, which all have a bitter antipathy to 

 the ophidian race and kill them wherever found. Even 

 though they may not always devour the mangled remains, 

 there are hosts of birds who gain their livelihood by assidu- 

 ously seeking poisonous serpents. 



Ask the Australian colonist which of the many queer birds 

 that adorn his primitive forests he holds in most reverence, 

 and he will instantly name the "laughing jackass," as he calls 

 the giant kingfisher ( Dacelo gigantea). Its note does cer- 

 tainly resemble a donkey's bray. The dacelo lives almost 

 entirely on poisonous reptiles, in which the island continent 

 is inconveniently rich. And he \ aries the diet only by lizards 

 — especially venemous ones; also frogs and toads, cicades, 

 and tree-leeches. He never catches fish after the manner 

 of his American or European kindred. I have seen one of 

 these singular birds catch a deadly snake. 



It was a hot day in the Blue Mountains of New South 

 Wales, and I had been tramping through almost shadeless 

 bush for some hours. At last, reaching a big mimosa I sat 

 in its shadow on a fallen tree trunk; for it is almost the only 

 one of the Australian trees that does not turn the edge of its 

 leaves to the sun; this accounts for the curious shadelessness 

 of the antipodean bush. Suddenly I beheld a big dacelo in 

 one of the gum trees opposite. He was sitting motionless, 

 as I had seen his American namesake over pond or trout 

 stream. 



He startled me with an abrupt dash to the ground not 

 far from where I sat, and a few seconds later flew back to 

 his perch with something wriggling in his big fierce-looking 

 bill. It was a carpet snake that had been basking in the hot 

 sunshine just beyond the shelter of the mimosa clump. The 

 dacelo had seized the reptile by the neck and held it in a vice- 

 like grip, despite its violent struggles and writhings. And 

 now and then the angry bird would bang its prey's head 

 against the hard bough of the gum tree until he had reduced 

 the evil-looking deadly thing to mere harmless pulp. Then 

 only did he relax his hold, to toss the dead snake, limp and 

 lifeless like a strip of hide, high into the air. 



Very cleverly did the bird catch it by the tail, and proceed 

 to engulf it in its capacious maw. The coiled-up remains of 

 the reptile formed a projecting mass on the bird's breast that 

 was fully visible from where I sat. So far the jackass had 

 been too busy capturing and preparing the snake to notice 

 me, though I sat within ten yards of him. His banquet 

 done, however, he caught sight of me, ruffled up his feathers 

 fiercely, and with an eerie shriek compounded of laugh, 

 groan, and bray, flew off noisily to digest his capture. 



As the intestinal tract of the dacelo is short, digestion is 

 not a lengthy process. Consequently he eats often, and from 

 dawn to dusk is industriously after snakes, being on that 

 account first favorite of the woods with squatter and bush- 

 man, who protect the bird from every pot-hunter. 



The Australian magpie or singing crow is also a serpent 

 killer, as is the native crane and several others. This crow, 

 handsome, lively, and clever, is known from Sidney to Fre- 

 mantle for his black and white coat and startling diet of 

 centipedes, scorpions, and poisonous snakes. He, too, first 

 kills his prey, throws it into the air with a song of triumph 

 and then disposes of it at leisure. 



The "native companion," as the Australian crane is called, 

 is no mean antagonist of the ophidian race, of which it de- 

 stroys hundreds of thousands. Its method of killing is 

 peculiar, for it stamps on the reptile with the full force of 

 its leg, retracted up to the body and then propelled down- 

 ward like a piston rod with all the bird's strength on foe 

 and prey. And to make assurance doubly sure the crane 

 strikes a quick succession of blows that crushes the last 

 vestige of life out of the mangled reptile, which is then 

 swallowed with no more ado. 



I fear the natural history books of one's childhood are 

 very far astray when dealing with another snake-eater, the 

 Secretary-bird of South Africa (Serpentarius reptilivorus) . 

 More than once I have seen this curious creature — half vul- 

 ture and half falcon, with a suggestion of the crane — 

 tackling a big snake just as the native companion of Aus- 

 tralia does; that is to say, never touching it with beak or 

 wing, but always stamping on the squirming folds with its 

 powerful legs, disabling the reptile at the first blow and 

 finally dislocating all the vertebrse. 



Should the snake show fight, the secretary-bird seems to 

 tighten all its feathers about it, hopping briskly here and 

 there, with all the "foot-work" of the veteran pugilist, so as 

 to avoid the desperate onslaught. Such contests can only end 

 one way, and the crushed serpent is soon reposing harm- 

 lessly in its living tomb. Another Australian bird, known 

 as Jardine's Harrier, is a serpent-killer of great ability, 

 especially endowed by Nature with legs of great length 

 mailed with strong yellow scales, quite impervious to 

 ophidian teeth. It also kills and eats frogs, newts, lizards, 

 and other reptiles. 



The harrier, besides the pied crow and the laughing jack- 

 ass, is of great value to Australia, which contains so many 

 varieties of deadly snakes. It seeks for them on the wing, 

 hawking at no great distance from the ground over the 

 hot and stony places frequented by them. With a sudden 

 sweep the reptile is grasped by the neck with one powerful 

 foot, and then the harrier soars high into the air and kills 

 its reptile prey by dropping it on rocks or hard sun-baked 

 earth from great altitudes. 



The Indian adjutants and cranes of all kinds, Man- 

 churian and Dutch, are also snake hunters. Indeed, in India 

 the adjutant is treated with as much consideration as the 

 sacred monkeys of Hanuman, and woe betide the in- 

 experienced tourist or visitor who tries to shoot one of 

 these curious birds. 



Then there is the burrowing owl of the South American 

 pampas, who preys upon young rattlesnakes, following the 

 creatures into their own holes. These birds also are re- 

 spected, and with cause. For there is no greater foe to all 

 warm-blooded mammals than the poisonous snake; and any 

 bird with cleverness and courage enough to kill one and 

 dine off it afterward, well deserves our gratitude and 

 protection. 



