One of my companions described what he had witnessed in a struggle with a wounded stork in the shallow water of this lagoon.

He and a friend were out after wild-duck, and his friend, desiring to bag a giant stork, which looked splendid in his strongly contrasted pure white and deep black plumage, fired, and wounded the bird.

His Persian servant, with thoughts intent on cooking it, ran, knife in hand, to cut its throat in the orthodox manner, so as to make it lawful for a Mohammedan to eat.

The bird, on being seized, struggled hard with its captor, and, snapping its elongated bill widely in wild terror, by accident got the man's head jammed between its mandibles.

The keen cutting edges of the long strong beak scarified the man's cheeks, and made him scream with pain and with frantic fear that it was _his_ throat which was being cut.