SOUTHERN AFRICA. 89 
the Norfolk bustard. The feathers of the neck are long, very 
thick, and loose, like those of a domestic fowl, of a bright 
chcsnut color on the upper part, and an ash-colored blue 
under the throat and on the breast. The feathers of the back 
beautifully undulated with black and brown lines, the belly 
white; the tail feathers from sixteen to twenty in number, 
marked across with alternate bars of black and white ; the 
spread of the wings seven feet, and the whole length of the 
bird three feet and an half. It is generally met with in the 
neighbourhood of farm-houses ; and to all appearance might 
very easily be domesticated : the flesh is exceedingly good, 
with a high flavor of game. Jn the vicinitj^ of the woods we 
saw a great number of the faico serpentarius, called, ridicu- 
lously enougli, the secretary bird, from the long feathers of its 
crest being supposed to resemble the pens that it was the 
custom for merchants' clerks to stick in the hair. The scr- 
pentarius is the avowed enemy of snakes, on which account 
he is considered, both by the Colonists and the Hottentots, as 
a sort of privileged bird. Of the several kinds of snakes 
which they here enumerate, one only was considered as in- 
noxious ; this was the boom slavge or tree- snake, so called 
from its being generally found coiled round the branches of 
trees ; it is from six to ten feet in length, very thick, and of 
a dark steel-blue color approaching nearly to black. It is 
said to take its abode- in trees for the sake of procuring its 
food with the greater convenience, which in general consists 
of the smaller kinds of birds. The fascinating power ascribed 
to certain snakes of drawing animals within their reach by 
fixing their eyes upon them, or by some other means, has 
often .been mentioned and as often doubted. When a fact is 
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