io8



Mr. W. H. St. QuinTin,



“ across the front. Somehow, in spite of abundant mealies

“ (Indian corn) and much soaked bread, that fowl would never

“ get fat, nor had his predecessor ever done so ; we had grown

“weary of feeding np the latter for weeks with no result, and in

“ despair had killed and eaten him at last — a poor bag of bones,

“not worth a tithe of the food he had consumed.


“ And now here was another, apparently suffering from the

“same kind of atrophy; the whole thing was a puzzle to us,

“until one day the mystery was solved, and Jacob stood revealed

“as the author of the mischief. He had devised an ingenious

“ way of persecuting the poor prisoner, and on seeing it we no

“ longer wondered at the latter’s careworn looks. Jacob would

“ come up to his box and make defiant and insulting noises at

“ him— none could do this better than he—until the imbecile

“ curiosity of fowls prompted the victim to protrude his head and

“ neck through the bars ; then, before he had time to draw back,

“Jacob’s foot would come down with a vicious dab on his head.

“The foolish creature never seemed to learn wisdow by ex-

“ perience, though he must have been nearly stunned many

“ times, and his head all but knocked off by Jacob's great power¬

ful foot and leg ; yet as often as the foe challenged him, his

“poor simple face would look inquiringly out, only to meet

“ another buffet.


“As he would not take care of himself, we had to move

“ him into a safe place, where he no longer died daily, and was

“ able at last to fulfil his destiny by becoming respectably fat.”


Secretaries in South Africa breed during the winter months

(June and July). The usual clutch is three, but I once saw four

birds in a nest. The eggs are bluish white, sometimes marked

with rusty brown and occasionally quite plain. They measure

about 3 05 by 2'25. The young remain in the nest till well on to

the end of September as their legs are very weak and brittle,

and for a long time after hatching they cannot stand, but crawl

feebly about the big platform of a nest on the tarsus.



