AFRICA. 245 
accurate account of all its various kinds of 
food. 
It is true, in his defcription he tranflates the 
Dutch word Jlang-vreeter by the French word 
ftlican^ and confequently makes one fpecies 
only of two very different ones. Bat Kolben 
was no naturaUft ; and his work inchides fo 
many errors, that it would be furprifing If this 
did not occur in it. I have been rnore fur- 
prifed, I confefs, that none of our modern na- 
turaUft s, even they who fpeak of the fecretary 
mofi: at large, have taken any notice of three 
bkmt bony protuberances, which it has at the 
bend and laft articulation of its wings, though 
they are infinitely lefs confpicuous than in the 
jacana or kamichi. 
This omiffion I have thought ft range, par- 
ticularly in Buffon, v/ho has not defcribed the 
bird from the accounts of others, hut from an 
individual which he had before his eyes, and 
which, I believe, was in the colledion of Mau~ 
duit. Yet the circumftance is eilential, fince 
it takes from the fecretary one of its principal 
diftinguifliing charaders ; and thefe protube- 
rances conftitute befidespart of the v/eapons of 
Pv 3 ^ this 
