August 1947 The Queensland Naturalist 
65 
voice, Master of words and books.” He presided over the 
judgment of the souls of the dead and t lie penalty for 
intentionally or accidentally killing a temple ibis was 
death, a method of enforcing the law which might well 
be tried here. 
The statement that the ibis destroyed snakes in large 
numbers is not considered reliable, but there were many 
stories told in Ancient Egypt of a snake-killing bird. 
This was the Secretary Bird of Africa, and the priests and 
seamen who visited Punt no doubt became familiar with 
its habits, ft is thought to have suggested the form of 
the Horns myth in which the God as a falcon attacks the 
serpent form of Set, the slayer of Osiris. In any case, 
the myth of the serpent-slaying bird became widespread. 
In Egypt it was identified with the hawk and elsewhere 
was supposed to be the eagle. An interesting reference to 
this myth is found in the Iliad. When the Trojans were 
attempting to reach the ships of their enemies and still 
stood outside the fosse, they saw an eagle flying above. 
“In its talons it bore a blood-red monstrous snake, alive 
and struggling still; yea, not yet had it forgotten the joy 
of battle, but writhed backward and smote the bird that 
held it. on the breast, beside the neck, and the bird cast it 
from him down to earth in sore pain and dropped it in the 
midst of the throng.” 
It is remarkable to note this eagle-serpent myth in 
Aztec mythology. From Prescott's History of the Conquest 
of Mexico we read an account of the founding of the City 
of Mexico in A.D. 1325, when the Aztecs reached a great 
lake, “They there beheld perched on a stem of a prickly 
pear which shot out from the crevice of a rock that was 
washed by the waves, a royal eagle of extraordinary size 
and beauty, with a serpent in his talons, and Ids broad 
wings opened to the rising sun. They hailed the auspicious 
omen announced by the oracle, as indicating the site of 
their future city. The legend of its foundation is still 
further commemorated by the device of the eagle and the 
cactus which forms the arms of the modern Mexican 
republic.” 
The serpent— slaying bird has a place too, in Indian 
mythology. The enemy of the serpent in India is the 
mongoose, so it is evident that their Garuda or serpent- 
slayer, is a memory of the African Secretary bird. Even 
if we can account for the western myths, it is hard to see 
