40 THE SECRETARY FALCON. 



single leap On whatever side the reptile endeavored to make his 

 escape, his enemy still appeared before him. Then, uniting at once 

 both braverv and cunning, the serpent boldly erected himself to inti- 

 midate the Bird, and, hissing dreadfully, displayed his menacing 

 throat, inflamed eyes, and a head swollen with rage and venom 

 " Sometimes this threatening appearance produced a momentary sus- 

 pension of hostilities; but the Bird soon returned to the charge, ani 

 covering her body with one of her wings as a buckler, struck her 

 enemy with the bony protuberance of the other. I saw him at last 

 stagger and fall : the conqueror then fell upon him to dispatch him, 

 and, with one stroke of her beak, laid open his skull." 



At this instant M. Le Vaillant fired at and killed the bird. In her 

 craw he found, on dissection, eleven tolerably large Lizzards ; three 

 Serpents, each as long as his arm ; eleven small Tortoises, most of which 

 were about two iuches in diameter ; and a number of Locusts and 

 other insects, several of them sufficiently whole to be worth preser- 

 ing and adding to his collection. He observed, too, that, in addition to 

 this mass of food, the craw contained a sort of ball, as large as the head 

 of a -Goose, formed of the vertebrae of Serpents and Lizards ; shells of 

 Tortoises ; and wings, claws, and shields, of different kinds of Beetles. 

 "Dr. Solander says, that he has seen one of these birds take up a 

 Snake, a small Tortoise, or other reptile, in its claw, and dash it with 

 so much violence against the ground, that the creature immediately 

 died ; if, however, this did not happen to be the case, he tells us that 

 the operation was repeated till the victim was killed ; after which it 

 was eaten. 



The Secretary is easily tamed ; and when domesticated, will eat any 

 kind of food, either dressed or raw. If well fed, it not only lives with 

 poultry on amicable terms, but, when it sees any of them quarrelling, 

 it will even run to part the combatants and restore order. This bird, 

 it is true, if pinched with hunger, will devour, without scruple, the 

 ducklings and chickens ; but this abuse of confidence, if it may be 

 so called, is the effect of severe hunger, and the pure and simple exer- 

 L-'ise of that necessity which rigorously devotes one half of the living 

 creation to satisfy the appetite of the rest. 



Tame Secretaries were seen by M. Le Vaillant in several of the 

 plantations of the Cape. He says that they commonly lay two or 

 three white eggs, nearly as large as those of a goose. The young- 

 ones remain a great while in the nest ; because, from their legs being 

 long and slender, they cannot easily support themselves. 



However shrewd and cunning this bird may be in its general con- 

 duct, yet M. de Buffon seems to have attributed to it a much greater 

 degree of intelligence than it really possesses: — "When a painter 

 (^ays he, quoting a letter of the viscount de Querhoent) was employed 

 ill draving one of the Secretary Falcons, it approached him, looked 

 ■atteutivaly upon his paper, stretched out its neck, and erected the 

 feathers of its head, as if admiring its own figure. It often came with 

 its wingri raised, and its head projected, to observe what he was doing. 

 It also thus approached me two or three times, when I was sitting at 

 a table, in its hut, in order to describe it." This stretching out of itf 



