The Secretary Bird does not feed exclusively on serpents; it also consumes lizards, tortoises, and even insects; its voracity is extreme, and it possesses a power of digestion which is really surprising. Levaillant killed one the stomach of which contained twenty-one small tortoises, still whole; eleven lizards, eight or nine inches long; three serpents of a length varying from two to two and a half feet; a perfect heap of grasshoppers and other insects; and, lastly, a great pellet of various remains, which it had not been able to assimilate, and which would have ultimately been vomited up.
These birds are natives of the arid plains of South Africa. They pair about the month of July, the male birds having first engaged in sanguinary conflicts for the choice of their mates. Their nest, which is flat, and lined on the inside with down and feathers, is constructed in the thickest bushes, or on the loftiest trees, in which two or three eggs, of a white hue spotted with red, are laid. The young ones are very late in quitting the parental home; for they do not leave it till they have acquired full development. Nearly four months elapse before they are able to stand firmly and run about with complete freedom.
The Secretary Bird is much appreciated at the Cape of Good Hope, on account of the services it renders in destroying venomous reptiles. As it is easily tamed if captured when young, the colonists have made a domestic bird of it, and use it to protect their poultry against the incursions of serpents and rats. With the inhabitants of the poultry-yard it is always on good terms, even to quelling the quarrels which spring up among the Gallinaceæ around it. But it must be related that it is necessary to see that it is sufficiently fed, for otherwise it will not hesitate to help itself occasionally to a chicken.
In 1832 the Secretary Bird was introduced into the French West Indies, particularly Guadaloupe and Martinique, on purpose to make war upon the Trigonocephalus, or Rattlesnake, a dangerous reptile swarming in those countries, which we mentioned in a previous portion of this work. The introduction of the Secretary Bird into the Antilles proved to be a real benefit. In order to be convinced of this it is only necessary to read the interesting work published a few years ago on this question by M. Rufz de Lavison, who was for a long time an inhabitant of the French West Indies before he became director of the Jardin Zoologique d'Acclimatation, in Paris.
THE END.
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FOOTNOTES.
[1] Vide, however, [p. 8].—Ed.
[2] This, however, is a subject upon which naturalists of the highest rank hold different opinions, many of those most highly qualified to form a correct judgment advocating the tenets propounded by Mr. Charles Darwin.—Ed.
[3] "The Ocean World," from the French of Louis Figuier. "The Insect World," from the French of the same author.