rounded bony projections, with which, as well as with his feet, the bird attacks and destroys his prey. In his habits he partly resembles both the Eagle and the Vulture, but differs from them most completely in the nature of his prey and in his mode of attacking it. Like the former he always prefers live flesh to carrion; but the food to which he is most particularly attached consists of snakes and other reptiles, for the destruction of which he is admirably fitted by his organization. The length of his legs not only enables him to pursue these creatures over the sandy deserts which he inhabits with a speed proportioned to their own, but also places his more vulnerable parts in some measure above the risk of their venomous bite; and the imperfect character of his talons, when compared with those of other rapacious birds, is in complete accordance with the fact that his feet are destined rather to inflict powerful blows, than to seize and carry off his prey. When he falls upon a serpent, he first attacks it with the bony prominences of his wings, with one of which he belabours it, while he guards his body by the expansion of the other. He then seizes it by the tail and mounts with it to a considerable height in the air, from which he drops it to the earth, and repeats this process until the reptile is either killed or wearied out; when he breaks open its skull by means of his beak, and tears it in pieces with the assistance of his claws, or, if not too large, swallows it entire. Like the Eagles these birds live in pairs, and not in flocks; they build their aiery, if so it may be termed, on the loftiest trees, or, where these are wanting, in the most bushy and tufted thickets. They run with extreme swiftness, trusting, when pursued, rather to their legs than to their wings; and as they are generally met with in the open country, it is with difficulty that they can be approached sufficiently near for the sportsman to obtain a shot at them. They are natives of the south of Africa, and appear to be tolerably numerous in the neighbourhood of the Cape; where, it is said, they have been tamed to such a degree as to render them useful inmates of the poultry-yard, in which they not only destroy the snakes and rats which are too apt to intrude upon those precincts, but even contribute to the maintenance of peace among its more authentic inhabitants by interposing in their quarrels and separating the furious combatants who disturb it by their brawls. [Illustration] [Illustration] THE VIRGINIAN HORNED-OWL. _STRIX VIRGINIANA._ LINN.