STORIES OF LE VAILLANT 



fighting is to use one wing as a defence, and to buffet 

 with the other, until the puff adder or cobra is wearied 

 of the strife, when it is swallowed. Sometimes, though 

 rarely, the serpent is the victor, and it is said that if the 

 snake bites a feather the secretary bird will immediately 

 pull it out. Considering the points of likeness which the 

 secretary bird does bear to the crane tribe, from which, 

 according to the opinion of at least two bird anatomists, 

 it is perhaps to be derived, it is significant that its voice 

 " precisely resembles the call of the Stanley crane." 

 Its feet and beak, however, proclaim it a hawk. So 

 too, its eggs, which are white blotched with red ; but 

 then eggs are not so decisive as marks of affinity, 

 and crane's eggs are after all not so very dissimilar. 

 The energy of the secretary bird in pursuing reptiles 

 is attested to by the traveller le Vaillant, who withdrew 

 from the stomach of one of these birds twenty-one small 

 tortoises up to two inches in length, eleven lizards of 

 seven to eight inches, three serpents as long as the arm, 

 and a multitude of grasshoppers. In confinement it is 

 apt to take toll of the fowl run ; but in a state of nature 

 it does not seem to care for birds. The bird builds a 

 huge nest which is used year after year, and is even added 

 to. Therein are deposited two eggs. The secretary 

 bird establishes spheres of influence, like the robin over 

 here. It is apt, like mankind, to be much occupied 

 with boundary questions, and will not tolerate aggression. 



THE OSPREY 



The osprey treated of here has of course nothing what- 

 ever to do with the plumes of feathers known to the 

 " trade " by that name. The latter are the spray-like 

 crests of the white egret, one of the herons. The osprey 

 of this book is a hawk which gets its livelihood in a way 

 which is rare among rapacious birds, that is by fishing. 

 Its name is believed to be a corruption of Ossifraga, i.e. 



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