IIIHDS. 89 



birds, and consequently unfit for training, however injurious 

 tliey may be to the pigeon-house or the sportsman. They have 

 been indeed taught to fly at game ; but little is to be obtained 

 Irom their efforts, being difficult of instruction, and capricious in 

 their obedience. It has been lately asserted, however, by one 

 whose authority is respectable, that the sparrow-hawk is the 

 boldest and the best of all others for the pleasure of the 

 chase. • 



CHAP. VI. 



THE BUTCHER BIllD. 



Before I conclude this short history of rapacious birds that 

 prey by day, I must take leave to describe a tribe of smaller 

 birds, that seem from their size rather to be classed with the 

 harmless order of the sparrow kind ; but that from their crook- 



« ITie Secretary Falcon, an inhabitant of the south of Africa, is a singular 

 bird, for whose natural history we are chiefly indebted to the indefatig'able 

 labours of M. te Vaillant. Its body, when standing erect, is not much lui- 

 iike the crane ; but its liead, bill, and claws, are precisely those of the fal. 

 con. The general colour of the plumage is a bluish-ash ; the tips of tha 

 wings, the thighs, and the vent, being blackish : the tail is black near the 

 end, but the very tip is white : the legs are long, so that it measures, wheu 

 standing erect, full three feet from the top of the head to the ground. On 

 the back of the head are several long dark-coloured feathers, hanging down 

 behind, and which it can erect at pleiisure. This crest has induced the Dutch 

 at the Cape to give it the name of the secretary, from the resemblance they 

 fancy it has to the pen of a writer, «hen in the tirao of leisure it is stuck 

 behind the ear. 



The food to which this bird is particularly attached consists of snakes and 

 other reptiles, for the destruction of which it is admirably fitted by its oi- 

 ganization. In the craw of one, M. le Vaillant foimd eleven tolerably largi« 

 lizards, three serpen*s as long as his arm, eleven small tortoises of .about 

 two inches in diameter, and a nmnber of locusts and other insects, some ot 

 which were so entire that he added them to his collection. The mode in 

 H'liich it seizes serpents is very peculiar. When it approaches them, it is 

 always careful to carry the one point of its wings forvN'ard, in order to parry 

 off their venomous bites ; sometimes it finds an opportunity of spurning and 

 treading upon its antagonist, or else of taking him on its pinions and throw, 

 ing him into the air. When by this proccedi''g it has at length weaned ou» 

 its adversary, and rendered him almost senseless, it kills and swallows liiit^ 

 at lei.'^ure, without danger. 



