SECRETARY-BIRD, a very singular African animal first accurately made known, from an example living in the menagerie of the prince of Orange, in 1769 by Vosmaer, in a treatise published simultaneously in Dutch and French, and afterwards included in his collected works issued, under the title of Regnum Animale, in 1804. He was told that at the Cape of Good Hope this bird was known as the "Sagittarius" or Archer, from its striding gait being thought to resemble that of a bowman advancing to shoot, but that this name had been corrupted into that of "Secretarius." In August 1770 Edwards saw an example (apparently alive, and the survivor of a pair which had been brought to England) in the possession of Mr figured, but not at all correctly, the species, saying (but no doubt wrongly) that he found it in 1771 in the Philippine Islands. A better representation was given by D'Aubenton in the Planches Enluminées (721); in 1780 Buffon (Oiseaux, vii. p. 330) published some additional information derived from Querhoent, saying also that it was to be seen in some English menageries ; and the following year Latham (Synopisis, i. p. 20, pi. 2) described and figured it from three examples which he had seen alive in England. None of these authors, however, gave the bird a scientific name, and the first conferred upon it seems to have been that of Falco serpentarius, inscribed on a plate bearing date 1779, by John Frederick Miller (III. Nat. History, xxviii.), which plate appears also in Shaw's Cimelia Physica (No. 28) and is a misleading caricature. In 1786 Scopoli called it Otis secretarius— thus referring it to the Bustards, and Cuvier in 1798 designated the genus to which it belonged, and of which it still remains the sole representative, Serpentarius. Succeeding systematists have, however, encumbered it with many other names, among which the generic terms Gypogeranus and Ophiotheres, and the specific epithets reptili-vorus and cristatus, require mention here. The Secretary-bird is of remarkable appearance, standing nearly 4 feet in height, the great length of its legs giving it a resemblance to a Crane or a Heron; but the expert will at once notice that, unlike those birds, its tibia are feathered all the way down. From the back of the head and the nape hangs, loosely and in pairs, a series of black elongated feathers, capable of erection and dilation in periods of excitement.





The skin round the eyes is bare and of an orange colour. The head, neck, and upper parts of the body and wing-coverts are bluish-grey; but the carpal feathers, including the primaries, are black, as also are the feathers of the vent and tibiae,—the last being in some examples tipped with white. The tail-quills are grey for the greater part of their length, then barred with black and tipped with white; but the two middle feathers are more than twice as long as those next to them, and drooping downwards present a very unique appearance.
The habits of the Secretary-bird have been very frequently described, one of the best accounts of them being by Verreaux in the Zoological Society's Proceedings for 1856 (pp. 348-352). Its chief prey consists of insects and reptiles, and as a foe to snakes it is held in high esteem. Making every allowance for exaggeration, it seems to possess a strange partiality for the destruction of the latter, and successfully attacks the most venomous species, striking them with its knobbed wings and kicking forwards at them with its feet, until they are rendered incapable of offence, when it swallows them. The nest is a huge structure, placed in a bush or tree, and in it two white eggs, spotted with rust-colour, are laid. The young remain in the nest for a long while, and even when four months old are unable to stand upright. They are very frequently brought up tame, and become agreeable not to say useful pets about a house, the chief drawbacks to them being that when hungry they will help themselves to the small poultry, and the fragility of their legs, which follows on any sudden alarm, and ends in their death. The Secretary-bird is found, but not very abundantly and only in some localities, over the greater part of Africa, especially in the south, extending northwards on the west to the Gambia and in the interior to Khartum, where Von Heuglin observed it breeding.

The systematic position of the genus Serpentarius has long been a matter of discussion, and is still one of much interest, though of late classifiers have been pretty well agreed in placing it in the Order Accipitres. Most of them, however, have shown great want of perception by putting it in the Family Falconidae. No anatomist can doubt its forming a peculiar Family, Serpentariidae, differing more from the Falconidae than do the Vulturidae; and the fact of Prof. A. Milne - Edwards having recognized in the Miocene of the Allier the fossil bone of a species of this genus, S. robustus (Ois. foss. France, ii. pp. 465-468, pi. 186, figs. 1-6), proves that it is an ancient form, one possibly carrying on a direct and not much modified descent from a generalized form, whence may have sprung not only the Falconidae but perhaps the progenitors of the Ardeidae and Ciconiidae, as well as the puzzling Cariamidae (SERIEMA, q.v.). (A. N.)






The above article was written by: Prof. Alfred Newton.