612 REPTILES AND BIRDS. 



which the bird uses with much skill to disable the various snakes 

 of which its food principally consists. It has on its head a tuft of 

 long feathers, which can be raised at will. This has been the origin 

 of its name, in allusion to the custom that clerks had of placing their 

 pen behind their ear in the days when goose-quills were used for 

 writing. Its toes are short, and its claws blunt and well-adapted for 

 walking. It consequently runs very rapidly; hence it sometimes 

 obtains the name of Messenger Bird. 



A contest between a Secretary Bird and a serpent is a most 

 curious sight. The reptile, when attacked suddenly, stops and rears 

 itself up, swelling its neck and showing anger by shrill hissings. 



" At this instant," says Levaillant, " the bird of prey, spreading 

 one of his wings, holds it in front of him, and covers both his legs 

 as well as the lower part of his body with it as if with a buckler. 

 The reptile makes a spring at his enemy ; the bird makes a bound, 

 and, spurning the serpent with his wing, retreats again, jumping 

 about in every direction in a mode which to a spectator appears 

 highly grotesque. He soon returns to the combat, ever presenting 

 to the venomous tooth of his adversary nothing but the end of his 

 well-protected wing; and whilst the latter is fruitlessly expending 

 its poison by biting the callous feathers, the bird is inflicting 

 vigorous blows with his other wing. At last the reptile, stunned 

 and wavering, rolls at full length in the dust ; the bird then cleverly 

 catches hold of it, and throws it several times up into the air, 

 until, the victim becoming exhausted and powerless, the bird crushes 

 its skull with his sharp-pointed bill. The serpent is then swallowed 

 whole by its conqueror, unless it is too big, in which case it is first 

 torn in pieces." 



The Secretary Bird does not feed exclusively on serpents ; it also 

 consumes lizards, tortoises, and even insects ; its voracity is extreme, 

 and it possesses a power of digestion which is really surprising. 

 Levaillant killed one, the stomach of which contained twenty-one 

 small tortoises (still whole); eleven lizards, each eight or nine inches 

 long; three serpents, of a length varying from two to two and a half 

 feet ; a perfect heap of grasshoppers and other insects ; and, lastly, a 

 great pellet of various remains which it had not been able to assimi- 

 late, and which would have ultimately been vomited up. 



These birds are natives of the arid plains of South Africa. They 

 pair about the month of July, the male birds having first engaged in 

 sanguinary conflicts for the choice of their mates. Their nest, which 

 is flat and lined on the inside with down and feathers, is constructed 

 in the thickest bushes, or on the loftiest trees, in which two or three 



