378 The Bird 
its beak, then holding it down firmly with one of its feet, 
it pulls upward and so tears the meat. 
So exactly correlated are these changes of habit and 
of feet that in the Caracara, a Mexican bird of mixed 
habits, partly rapacious and partly vulturine, the toes and 
claws are correspondingly midway between the two groups 
of birds. This bird lacks sufficient grasping power to 
enable it to lift its prey from the ground after the manner 
of a true Hawk; but it will overcome this difficulty by 
carrying up the object in its beak, and then reaching for- 
ward with its feet, while in full flight, and taking a careful 
grip with its talons. 
In South Africa is a bird known as the Secretary, 
which is really a terrestrial hawk, rarely flying, but spend- 
ing most of its time stalking about in search of food. Any 
one who has seen an eagle progressing upon the ground 
by means of its awkward gallop, can realize the impos- 
sibility of such a short-legged bird preferring terrestrial 
life, but the legs of the Secretary are as long as those of 
a crane, although in other respects the bird would pass 
for a very long-tailed species of hawk; it is really a hawk 
on stilts. However, there are reasons for supposing that 
the Secretary Bird may be, not a more or less recent off- 
shoot from the hawks, but a surviving type of old, old 
days when there were no hawks and cranes and herons, 
but instead, a few strange birds which combined the 
characteristics of all these groups. 
The skilful way in which the Secretary Bird brings its 
feet into play in the capture of serpents, of which it is 
very fond, has been described as follows: 
