A COURAGEOUS BIRD. 
299 
ing bird a pellet, as large as a duck's egg, composed wholly of the 
vertebrae of serpents and lizards, shells of tortoises, wings and feet of 
grasshoppers, and the elytra, or wing-cases, of numerous beetles. 
From all antiquity the prowess of the serpent-bird has been famous. 
He does not hesitate to attack, says Le Vaillant, an enemy so formidable 
as the serpent. When it flies, the bird pursues, and in pursuing seems 
to skim the earth ; yet he does not develop his wings, like the ostrich, 
to assist his course : he reserves them for the combat, and they then 
become his weapons offensive and defensive. The reptile, if surprised 
at a distance from its hole, halts, rears its crest, and seeks to intimi- 
date its adversary; swelling its head in anger, and emitting a loud, 
shrill, hissing noise. The bird of prey, unfolding one of his wings, 
spreads it before his body as a shield. The serpent springs ; the bird 
leaps forward, strikes, retreats, moves on this side and on that in a 
manner which to a spectator is most amusing, and returns again and 
again to the combat, always presenting to the venomous fangs of his 
foe an outstretched wing ; and while the latter fruitlessly exhausts its 
poison in biting the insensible pens, he deals with the other a succes- 
sion of vigorous blows, until the reptile, stunned, rolls over in the dust. 
Then it is seized at once, thrown up in the air several times until its 
strength is completely gone ; after which the conqueror splits its skull 
open with his beak, and, if it be not too large, swallows it whole — 
gaining in this way both a victory and a banquet. 
THE WHYDAH-BIRD. 
A bird which resembles the secretary-bird in its wide distribution 
over the African continent, but in no other particular, is the whydah ; 
so called because the individuals first imported into Europe came from 
Whydah,* on the west coast. The name has been Latinized into 
Vidua by our naturalists, and thus a genus of Passeres has obtained 
the extraordinary and unmeaning designation of the " widow-birds." f 
We say "unmeaning," because it does not seem to be justified by the 
circumstances that the prevailing hue of their plumage is dark, and 
that the long tail of the male drops ofl" after the breeding-season. 
* Or Whydaw. t Or Whydah-finch. 
