The secretary, or serpent-eater, of Southern Africa, is sometimes also called the messenger, because it runs with great rapidity, as if it were in a violent hurry; and its name of the secretary alludes to its having a pen-like plume behind its ear. Its most suitable name, however, appears to be the serpent-eater, as it lives on serpents, which it attacks in a manner very different to most other birds of prey. "When he falls upon a serpent," Mr. Bennet observes, he first attacks it with the bony prominences of his wings, with one of which he belabours it, while he guards his body by the expansion of the other. He then seizes it by the tail, and mounts with it to a considerable height in the air, from which he drops it to the earth, and repeats this process until the reptile is either killed or wearied out; when he breaks open its skull by means of his bill, and tears it in pieces with the assistance of his claws, or, if not too large, swallows it entire." "It is interesting," Mr. Bennet mentions in another place, "to observe how admirably this creature is fitted by his organisation for the destruction of the snakes and other reptiles on which he feeds. The length of his legs not only enables him to pursue these creatures over the sandy deserts which he inhabits, with a speed proportioned to their own, but also places his more vulnerable parts in some measure above the risk of their venomous bite; and the imperfect character of his talons, when compared with those of other rapacious birds, is in complete accordance with the fact, that his feet are destined rather to inflict powerful blows than to seize and carry off his prey."
Nocturnal Birds of Prey.
The Nocturnal Birds of Prey are almost confined to the owl family, all of which are distinguished by a very peculiar physiognomy which is rendered more conspicuous by a circle of feathers which surrounds the head. The bill is curved almost from the base; the eyes are large, and furnished with a peculiar membrane; and the legs and feet, even the toes, are covered with short downy or hairy feathers, the claws being extremely sharp. The plumage is remarkable for its great softness. The ears are large, and the sense of hearing remarkably acute. The flight of all the owl family is light and buoyant, and performed by slow, but regular flapping of the wings. Owls are generally solitary; and as they are only seen at night, there is something ghostlike in their slow, noiseless flight, which imparts to them a kind of unearthly character, and no doubt has occasioned the superstitious feelings with which they are generally regarded. "There is something," says Wilson, "in the character of the owl so recluse, solitary, and mysterious, something so discordant in the tones of its voice, heard only amid the silence and the gloom of night, and in the most lonely and sequestered situations, as to have strongly impressed the minds of mankind in general with sensations of awe and abhorrence of the whole tribe. The poets have indulged freely in this general prejudice; and in their descriptions and delineations of midnight storms, and gloomy scenes of nature, the owl is generally introduced to heighten the horror of the picture."
If such are the feelings with which the owls of Europe are regarded, what must be the sensations caused by the great horned owl of America, which is not only much larger and stronger, but has an expression of ferocity in its countenance, which is really enough to excite terror. The favourite residence of this owl, according to Wilson, is the darkest solitude of a deep swamp, covered by a growth of gigantic timber, from which, so soon as evening darkens, and the human race retire to rest, he sends forth his unearthly hootings, starting the wayworn traveller by his forest fire, and "making night hideous." Among the noises made by this owl, there is one extremely unpleasant, which very strikingly resembles the half suppressed screams of a person suffocating, or being throttled, and the horror of this noise in a lonely forest, where it conveys the idea of some person being murdered, may be very easily conceived.
The burrowing owls are, however, perhaps the most singular species of the genus. They can hardly be called nocturnal birds, as they fly by day, and seem to enjoy the broadest glare of the sun; but they live in the burrows of the marmot, taking shelter under ground when pursued.
PERCHING BIRDS.
This is a very numerous family, and the birds belonging to it are generally perfectly well known, as they are those which we are in the habit of seeing every day in our gardens or about our houses. They include, indeed, all the soft-billed birds, which feed principally upon worms and insects, and many of which are delightful songsters.
The most remarkable of the perching-birds is, perhaps, the grey shrike, or common butcher-bird, which generally destroys its prey by strangulation; and transfixing it after death upon a thorn, tears it into smaller parts at leisure. Mr. Selby witnessed this operation of the shrike upon a hedge-sparrow, which it had just killed. In this instance it hovered, with its prey in its bill, for a short time over the hedge, till it had selected a thorn fitted for its purpose. "On disturbing it," continues Mr. Selby, "I found the sparrow firmly fixed by the tendons of the wing to the selected twig." On other occasions mice and other small quadrupeds have been found transfixed in a similar manner. The lesser shrike, which lives only on insects, kills and hangs up to dry so many more than it devours, that the hedge it inhabits looks almost like a Liliputian butcher's shambles.
What is called the black shrike is not uncommon in the mountain districts of Jamaica, where, Mr. Gosse informs us, from "the remarkable diversity in the appearance of the male and female, they are known by separate local names: the black male is known by the feminine appellation of Judy; while the chestnut-headed female receives the masculine sobriquet of Mountain Dick." The song of these birds is very peculiar, and is very commonly heard from the male and female alternately, seated on two trees, perhaps on the opposite sides of a road. Mountain Dick calls and Judy immediately answers; then there is a little pause, which is followed by a call from Mountain Dick, and an instant answer from Judy, and so on. The call is very peculiar, and consists of seven or eight notes, uttered as quickly as possible, and then ending in one long, low note. These birds fight vigorously when taken, and one which was slightly wounded, on being taken by Mr. Gosse into his hand, elevated its crown feathers and bit fiercely at his fingers, seizing and pinching the flesh with all its force, striving at the same time to clutch with its claws, and screaming vociferously.
The fly-catchers belong to this family, and the king-bird, or tyrant fly-catcher of the New World is so bold and has so much intrepidity, that it will attack even a bird of prey, if any such should venture to invade its territories. This bird is, however, in some measure obnoxious to the human race, on account of his great love of bees; for he will take up his abode on a post or a fence in the vicinity of hives, and will make continual sallies on their industrious tenants as they pass to and fro. The tyrant fly-catcher is, therefore, much disliked by the American settlers, who depend greatly upon their honey as a substitute for butter, which is generally scarce, from the want of herbage for their cows.
The curious group of birds called the chatterers, are famous for their enormous appetites, as one species is said to have gorged itself with apples till it was suffocated; and another (the European waxwing) was found to have crammed itself with holly berries till it could scarcely fly. The cedar bird, or American chatterer, is very handsome, from the scarlet wax-like ornaments of its wings.
The campanero or bell-bird, the song of which is like the tolling of a bell, Mr. Waterton observes, "is about the size of a jay. His plumage is as white as snow. On his forehead rises a spiral tube, nearly three inches long. It is jet black, clothed all over with small white feathers. It has a communication with the palate, and when filled with air, looks like a spire; when empty, it becomes pendulous. His note is loud and clear, like the sound of a bell, and may be heard at the distance of three miles. In the midst of these extensive wilds, generally on the top of an aged mora, almost out of gun reach, you will see the campanero. No sound or song from any of the winged inhabitants of the forest—not even the clearly-pronounced 'whip-poor-will,' from the goatsucker—causes such astonishment as the toll of the campanero. With many of the feathered race, he pays the common tribute of a morning and an evening song; and even when the meridian sun has shut in silence the mouths of almost the whole of animated nature, the campanero still cheers the forest. You hear his toll, and then a pause for a minute; then another toll, and then a pause again; and then a toll, and again a pause. Then he is silent for six or eight minutes, and then another toll, and so on. Actaeon would stop in mid chase, Maria would defer her evening song, and Orpheus himself would drop his lute, to listen to him, so sweet, so novel, and romantic is the toll of the beautiful snow-white campanero. He is never seen to feed with the other cotingas, nor is it known in what part of Guiana he makes his nest." Another nearly allied bird is called the blacksmith, from its peculiar cry, which sounds like the clinking of a blacksmith's hammer; and another, the cephalopterus, has its head adorned by a very peculiar tuft of feathers, which rises upwards, and then spreads around, slightly drooping downwards on every side, like a parasol; and another expanded and lengthened set of plumes hangs like an apron from the chest. The prevailing colour of the plumage is a deep black, having a metallic lustre. A stuffed specimen of this curious bird is in the museum at Paris, which is said to have been brought from Brazil; but, as naturalists have since frequently sought for it in vain in that country, it is probable that it came from some other part of South America.
The thrush family, including the blackbird, are all remarkable for the sweetness of their song. The American mocking-bird, which is a kind of thrush, is remarkable for the ease with which it imitates the notes of other birds. While thus exerting himself, a stranger might suppose that the whole of the feathered tribes had collected together in one spot, so perfect are his imitations. He often deceives the sportsman, making him believe that birds are close to him, which are, in fact, many miles away, "but whose notes he exactly imitates. Even birds themselves are frequently deceived by this admirable mimic, and are decoyed by the fancied calls of their mates, or dive with precipitation into the depths of thickets at the scream of what they suppose to be the sparrow-hawk."
The water-ouzel, a British bird, is remarkable for the strange situations it fixes on for building its nest. It is usually placed, Sir William Jardine informs us, beneath some projecting rock on the banks of a mountain stream, "and often where a fall rushes over, through which the parent birds must dash to gain the nest, which they do with apparent facility, and even seem to enjoy it. At night they roost in similar situations, perched, with the head under the wing, on some little projection, often so much leaning over as to appear to be hanging with the back downwards."