SECRETARY-BIRD 823 
simultaneously in Dutch and French, and afterwards included in 
his collected works issued, under the title of Regnwm Animale, in 
1804. He was told that at the Cape of Good Hope this bird was 
known as the “Sagittarius” or Archer, from its striding gait being 
thought to resemble that of a bowman advancing to shoot, but that 
this name had been corrupted into that of “Secretarius.” In 
August 1770 Edwards saw an example (apparently alive, and the 
survivor of a pair which had been brought to England) in the pos- 
session of Mr. Raymond near Ilford in Essex ; and, being unac- 
quainted with Vosmaer’s work, he figured and described it as “ of 
SECRETARY-BIRD, 
anew genus” in the following year (Phil. Trans, Ixi. pp. 55, 56, 
pl. ii.) In 1776 Sonnerat (Voy. Now. Guinée, p. 87, pl. 50) again 
this bird under its local name of ‘‘ Snake-eater” (Slangenvreeter, Dutch transla- 
tion, i. p. 214); but that author, who was a bad naturalist, thought it was a 
Pelican and also confounded it with the Spoonbill, which is figured to illustrate 
his account of it. Though he doubtless had seen, and perhaps tried to describe, 
the Secretary-bird, he certainly failed to convey any correct idea of it. Latham’s 
suggestion (loc. infra cit.) that the figure of the ‘‘Grus Capensis cauda cristata” 
in Petiver’s Gazophylacium (tab. xii. fig. 12) was meant for this bird is negatived 
by his description of it (p. 20). The figure was probably copied from one of 
Sherard’s paintings and is more likely to have had its origin in a Crane of some 
species. Vosmaer’s plate is lettered ‘‘ Amerikaanischen Roof-Vogel,” of course 
by mistake for ‘‘ Afrikaanischen.” 
