SLOKEES OPSEEa Vy ALEICAN T 
fighting is to use one wing as a defence, and to buffet 
with the other, until the puff adder or cobra is wearied 
of the strife, when it is swallowed. Sometimes, though 
rarely, the serpent is the victor, and it is said that if the 
snake bites a feather the secretary bird will immediately 
pull itout. Considering the points of likeness which the 
secretary bird does bear to the crane tribe, from which, 
according to the opinion of at least two bird anatomists, 
it is perhaps to be derived, it is significant that its voice 
“precisely resembles the call of the Stanley crane.” 
Its feet and beak, however, proclaim it a hawk. So 
too, its eggs, which are white blotched with red; but 
then eggs are not so decisive as marks of affinity, 
and crane’s eggs are after all not so very dissimilar. 
The energy of the secretary bird in pursuing reptiles 
is attested to by the traveller le Vaillant, who withdrew 
from the stomach of one of these birds twenty-one small 
tortoises up to two inches in length, eleven lizards of 
seven to eight inches, three serpents as long as the arm, 
and a multitude of grasshoppers. In confinement it is 
apt to take toll of the fowl run ; but in a state of nature 
it does not seem to care for birds. The bird builds a 
huge nest which is used year after year, and is even added 
to. Therein are deposited two eggs. The secretary 
bird establishes spheres of influence, like the robin over 
here. It is apt, like mankind, to be much occupied 
with boundary questions, and will not tolerate aggression. 
THE OSPREY 
The osprey treated of here has of course nothing what- 
ever to do with the plumes of feathers known to the 
“trade” by that name. The latter are the spray-like 
crests of the white egret, one of the herons. The osprey 
of this book is a hawk which gets its livelihood in a way 
which is rare among rapacious birds, that is by fishing. 
Its name is believed to be a corruption of Osstfraga, i.e. 
IQI 
