13 
Sept., 1936. The Queensland Naturalist 
fered with it picked up the three eggs, one at a time, and 
swallowed them. 
There was no mistaking its action. I was too close 
for that. Picking up an egg with its front teeth, so to 
speak, it drew back its head and neck out of the hole, gave 
its head a toss, and the egg was swallowed. Bach egg was 
served the same. The jolly old cannibal ! I thought. 
Then, moving a few feet away, it excavated a new hole, 
showing as previously more than usual interest in the 
bottom of it. Half a dozen times it drew back, and half 
a dozen times it dived its head into the hole, and ap- 
peared to push and tramp the sand about some object. 
This done it filled the hole by scraping in the loose 
sand, and, with a final look round, walked off. To satisfy 
my curiosity, 1 cleaned out the hole, and found five eggs, 
Evidently the three that I had seen it swallow, and two 
more than it had not had time to bury when I first dis- 
turbed it, but which must have been somewhere down its 
throat at the time, the eggs having evidently been laid 
elsewhere, and carried about until a spot suitable for an 
incubator could be found. 
I do not molest the Monitors, as they are undoubt- 
edly useful in keeping down rabbits, of which there are a 
few in the neighbourhood. But at times I have to read 
the “Riot Act,” and take a gun to some individual that 
develops bad habits. 
I shot one that raided the fowl ’s quarters, and clean- 
ed up five new laid eggs, swallowed the lot without break- 
ing one, leaving the nest bedding as clean as if there had 
never been an egg there; a postmortem disclosed the eggs 
inside the reptile, but in a somewhat crumpled condition. 
This was a big specimen, measuring 4ft. 8|in., and 
weighed 141bs., which would be about the maximum size for 
these parts. Though longer ones are reported, I am lure 
I have never seen one of five feet. They are much more 
terrestrial than V. various , though doing so at times, they 
seldom climb trees, and are much cleaner feeders than the 
relative mentioned. I do not remember ever seeing them 
eating a putrid carcase. 
They don’t have things all their own way, for on open- 
ing an eight-foot black-headed Python (Aspidites melano - 
oephalus ) that was killed close by here, I found its last 
meal had been a. three-foot V. gouldiae, which had been 
swallowed, tail first ; its shape, and being devoid of feathers 
oi fur, making it immaterial, I suppose, which way it went 
down. 
The goannas swallow china nest eggs without hesita- 
tion, and then, after unavailing attempts to digest, re- 
