SOrJE SEKPENT-DESTllOYERS. 



625 



ler, struck her enemy with the horny protuberances upon the other, which, like little 

 clubs, served the more effectually to knock him down as he raised himself to the 

 blow ; at last he staggered and fell, the conqueror then despatched him, and with one 

 stroke of her bill laid open his skull." The secretary-eagle has now been successfully 

 acclimatized in the West Indies, where he renders himself useful by the destruction 

 of the venomous snakes with which the plantations are infested. 



Gravely, " with measured step and slow," like a German philosopher cogitating 

 over the nature of the absolute, but, as we shall presently see, much more profitably 

 engaged, the " Adjutant " wanders among the reeds on the banks of the muddy 

 Ganges. The aspect of this colossal bird, measuring six feet in hight and nearly 

 fifteen from tip to tip of the wings, is far from being comely, as his enormous bill, his 

 naked head and neck, except a few straggling curled hairs, his large craw hanging 

 down the forepart of the neck like a pouch, and his long, naked legs, are certainly no 

 features of beauty. Suddenly he stops, dips his bill among the aquatic plants, and 

 immediately raises it again triumphantly into the air, for a long snake, despairingly 

 twisting and wriggling, strives vainly to escape from the formidable pincers which 

 hold it fast. The bird throws back his head, and the reptile appears notably dimin- 

 ished in size ; a few more gulps, and it has entirely disappeared. And now the sedate 

 bird continues his stately promenade with the self satisfied mien of a merchant who 

 has just made a successful speculation, and is engaged in the agreeable calculation of 

 his gains. But lo ! again the monstrous bill descends, and the same scene is again 

 repeated. The good services of the Giant Heron in clearing the land of noxious rep- 

 tiles, and the havoc he is able to make among their ranks, may be judged of by the 

 simple fact, that on opening the body of one of them, a land-tortoise ten inches long 

 and a large black cat were found entire within it, the former in the pouch, as a kind 

 of stock in trade, the latter in the stomach, all ready for immediate consumption. 



Trusting to his agility and the certainty of his eye, the Indian Ichneumon or Mon- 

 goos attacks without hesitation the most venomous serpents. The cobra, which drives 

 even the leopard to flight, rises before the little creature with swelling head and fury 

 in its eye ; but swift as thought, the ichneumon, avoiding the death-stroke of the pro- 

 jecting fangs, leaps upon its back, and fastening his sharp teeth in the head, soon 

 despatches the helpless reptile. 



The serpents sometimes even feed upon their own brethren. Thus a rat-snake in 

 the Zoological Gardens was once seen to devour a common Coluber natrix, but not 

 having taken the measure of his victim, he could not dispose of the last four inches 

 of his tail, which stuck out rather jauntily from the side of his mouth, with very much 

 the look of a cigar. After a quarter of an hour the tail began to exhibit a retrograde 

 motion, and the swallowed snake was disgorged, nothing the worse for his living sep- 

 ulchre with the exception of the wound made by his partner when he first seized him. 

 A python in the same collection, who had lived for years on friendly terms with a 

 brother nearly as large as himself, was found one morning sole tenant of his den. As 

 the cage was secure, the keeper was puzzled to know how the serpent had escaped. 

 At last it was observed that the remaining inmate had swollen remarkably during the 

 night, when the truth came out. It was, however, the last meal of the fratricide, for 

 in some months he died. 



When we consider that the snakes have neither legs, wings, nor fins, and are indeed 



