Sept., 1915 
CHARACTERISTIC BIRDS OF THE DAKOTA PRAIRIES 
179 
lark whose pure minor notes have the sweetness, the serenity, and uplift that 
belong to the big clean prairie open under the sky. Beautiful prairies ! How 
they fill the imagination and free the mind of the escaped city dweller ! Miles 
and miles of prairie with hardly a house in sight, unclouded skies, and strong 
vivifying sunshine tempered by the cool fresh wind from far away ! 
Washington , D. C., May 23, 1915. 
A WALKING EAGLE FROM RANCHO LA BREA 
By LOYE HOLMES MILLER 
WITH ONE PHOTO BY H. S. SWARTH 
0 DISCUSS in a magazine of ornithology an extinct species of bird whose 
latest known remains are perhaps a quarter of a million years old may 
A seem a bit of an impropriety — an unwarranted liberty to take with The 
Condor’s pages ; yet many have indiscreetly (or politely) enquired from time to 
time of the progress of work on the Rancho La Brea fossil birds; hence this 
proffered contribution. The finding of remains of Labrador Duck, Pallas Cor- 
morant, or Great Auk, would furnish a news item which many would read with 
great interest. An egg of the Great Auk put up at auction among enthusiastic 
collectors would stimulate an interest easier to imagine than to describe. These 
birds are extinct. Most ornithologists know, and will know, h'ttle of them 
beyond the fact that they are extinct, yet the very name has a sound that 
catches the attention. It is hoped that Morphnus daggetti may appeal as hav- 
ing at least the distinction of extinction. Really, though, to the enthusiast, 
there are other reasons why he is of interest. 
Among the hundred thousand or more bird bones in the collection made 
at Rancho La Brea by the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art, 
there have been found two specimens which represent a species of eagle of 
most astonishing character. The part represented is that segment of the post- 
erior limb known to the ornithologist as the tarsus — perhaps the most char- 
acteristic bone of the bird’s body. This certainly is an eagle’s tarsus. It is 
somewhat less in transverse measurement than is the same bone of the golden 
eagle ( Aquila ), but in linear dimension it is nothing less than startling. When 
it is laid alongside of the tarsus of the Great Blue Heron ( Ardea , see fig. 63) 
there is seen to be less than a quarter of an inch difference in length between 
the two bones. An eagle on stilts is the instant impression — an impression not 
new to one who has seen that South African anomaly, the Secretary Bird 
(Serpentarius) , yet an impression that comes as a breath-catching surprise here 
in the vicinity of Los Angeles. 
It was the writer’s great pleasure, through courtesy of the New York 
Zoological Society, to enter the cages at the Bronx and study the live Secre- 
tary Bird in its feeding, running, and perching actions. The prehensile func- 
tion of the foot has been entirely abandoned for the sake of an ambulatory 
function. The Secretary Bird is indeed a stilt-walker — an eagle without talons. 
When the long-shanked eagle from the asphalt was first encountered, the ques- 
tions at once arose: “Is there evidence of degeneracy as an eagle? Was he a 
walking bird? Does he show kinship with South Africa and her Secretary 
Bird?” 
