Library of Cryptozoology

There have been, over a term of years, many reports of a snake that has a red comb and wattles like a cock, some of the narrators adding for good measure that it crows like a rooster, that bane of all drowsy suburbanites. As far a we can gather the story originated in Angola, spreading into South West Africa, and Rhodesia. A good account was sent to use from Southern Rhodesia. Our informant [Dennis A. Walker], when showing to one of his African boys some pictures of snakes, was asked if he had a picture of "the snake with the cock's comb and wattles". When he denied the existence of such a creature, the boy related that one day when hunting in the M'toko range, his dogs surrounded a small tree in which he saw a huge snake, which slid to the ground and raised the fore part of its body after the manner of a cobra, to a height of about six feet. Not surprisingly, he turned and ran, but not before he had seen that the snake's head was adorned with a red comb and wattl