a noise,
not unlike the crowing of a cock, and as being addicted to preying on
poultry.

Nor is it in Jamaica alone that the Crested Snake is known. In the
island of St Domingo, whence Seba received his curious specimens, my
friend Mr Hill heard reports of it. A Spanish gentleman whom he was
visiting in Hayti, told him that he had seen it, and begged him to note
it among the remarkable things of the country. It was in that far east
of the island, known as the ancient Caciquedom of Higuey, where the
Indians were of a more warlike disposition than their meek brethren of
the centre and west, and where the cruelties perpetrated upon them by
their Spanish invaders reached such a superhuman pitch of diabolism,
that even Las Casas says he almost feared to repeat them. The limestone
mountains are here of exactly the same description as those in Jamaica,
and the scenery assumes exactly the same romantic character. My friend's
Spanish informant had seen the serpent with mandibles like a bird, with
a cock's crest, with scarlet lobes or wattles; and he described its
habits,--perhaps rather from common fame than from personal
observation,--as a frequenter of hen-roosts, into which it would thrust
its head, and deceive the young chickens by its imitative physiognomy,
and by its attempts to crow, like their own Chanticleer. "Il canta como
un Gallo;" was the report in Hayti, just as in Jamaica.

I was much interested in this mysterious reptile, and mentioned in the
public papers my wish to possess a specimen. A gentleman of the
vicinity, Mr Jasper Cargill, was so desirous to oblige me that he
offered a sovereign for one; but though several persons were prompt to
promise the capture, no example was forthcoming.

After my return from Jamaica, the occurrence of two specimens found came
under the notice of my friend, but neither of them was preserved. Mr
Cargill had informed him that some years before, when visiting Skibo, in
St George's, an estate of his father's, in descending the mountain-road,
his attention was drawn to a snake of a dark hue, that erected itself
from amid some fragments of limestone-rock that lay about. It was about
_four feet long_, and unusually _thick-bodied_. His surprise was greatly
increased on perceiving that it was _crested_, and that from the side of
the cheeks depended some _red-coloured flaps_, like gills or wattles.
After gazing at him intently some time, with its head well erect, it
drew itself in, and