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THE SECRETARY-BIRD. 



This bird, as you may have suspected, was the famed secretary-bird of South 

 Africa, so named by the Dutch because of the fancied resemblance the tuft of 

 feathers bears to a pen thrust behind the ear. 



The Hottentots call it the serpent-eater, its scientific name being the serpen- 

 tarius rcptilivorus, and that the name is an appropriate one, I think can be shown 

 by what Jack Harvey witnessed a few minutes after its descent from its nest to the 

 earth. 



