110 
THE SNAKE-BIRD. 
place to roost. In rainy weather, they sleep 
the greater part of the day, their heads turned 
over their shoulders, and making a wheezing 
noise as if they were snoring. 
Like the heron, the snake-bird feeds upon 
fish ; but goes a very different way to work to 
catch it. She does not stand watching for it 
in the water, nor does she drop from a branch 
and pounce upon her prey; but she swims along, 
and dives after it as she swims. Before she 
dives she opens her bill a great many times, 
and draws as much air into her body as she 
can. And when she has caught the fish, she 
returns to the surface, tosses it into the air, 
and catches it again in her bill, and swallows 
it. 
The snake-birds build their nests in the 
trees of the swamp, and inhabit the same tree 
for a series of years. They build them in a 
circular form; the first layer is of dried sticks; 
green branches, and leaves, and the long 
flowing moss from the tree, and a few roots 
form the second layer, which is quite solid and 
compact. The mother bird sits upon her eggs, 
watching with keen eyes every movement of 
the kite or the crow that are hovering round, 
