THE SECRETARY FALCON. 





Engagement between a falcon and a serpent. 



Then, uniting at once both bravery and cunning, 

 he erected himself boldly to intimidate the bird ; 

 and hissing dreadfully, displayed his menacing 

 throat, inflamed eyes, and a head swoln with 

 rage and venom. " Sometimes," says our au- 

 thor, " this threatening appearance produced a 

 momentary suspension of hostilities ; but the 

 bird soon returned to the charge, and covering 

 her body with one of her wings as a buckler, 

 struck her enemy with the bony protuberances of 

 the other. I saw him at last stagger and fall : 

 the conqueror then fell upon him, and with one 

 stroke of her beak laid open his skull." 



At this instant Le Vaillant shot the bird : and 

 on dissecting her, he found in her craw eleven' 

 tolerably large lizards; three serpents, as long as 

 his arm ; eleven small tortoises, most of which 

 were about two inches in diameter; and a num- 

 ber of locusts and other insects, several of them 

 sufficiently whole to be worth preserving. He 

 also observed, that, in addition to this mass of 

 food, the craw contained a sort of ball, as large 

 as the egg of a goose, formed of the vertebrae of 

 serpents and lizards, shells of tortoises, and wings, 

 claws, and shields, of different kinds of beetles. 

 This indigestible mase, when become sufficiently 

 large, the secretary would probably have thrown 

 up, in the manner of other predaceous birds. 



Dr. Solander asserts, that he has seen one of 

 these birds take up a small tortoise, a snake, or 

 <other reptile, in its claw, and dash it against the 

 I 3 



