John Fairfield

Secretary Bird

Hi John: I rolled back your edit to the Secretary Bird article, as Miller is the one who described the type specimen of the species. (Your fellow may indeed have described one, but his account isn't recognized as being the first description.) I've put the bit you added onto the Talk page, if you want to make a case for it... Please let me know if you have any questions! MeegsC | Talk 19:04, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Hello MeegsC,

Thank you very much for your quick response. I am not sure which of our sources are considered to be the most "authentic" but I believe that at least the Encyclopedia Britannica (quoted below) is pretty adamant on whom it considers to have provided the first "description" of the Secretary Bird as well the fact that it has been described by several other prior to Miller. You will, however, notice that the EB concedes at the end of the article that Miller is considered the first to have conferred a scientific name on the Secretary Bird. In conclusion I would like to mention that I have an original copy of Vosmaers Treatise of the Secretary Bird (published in 1769) in my collection and that at least in my opinion this document and its illustration provide a far mor accurate portrayal of the bird than Miller

Kind Regards,

John F.

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SECRETARY-BIRD, a very singular African bird, first accurately made known, from an example living in the menagerie of the prince of Orange, in 1769 by A. 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 G. Edwards saw an example Secretary-Bird (apparently alive, and the survivor of a pair which had been brought to England) in the possession of a Mr Raymond near Ilford in Essex; and, being unacquainted with Vosmaer's work, he figured and described it as "of a new genus" in the Philosophical Transactions for the following year (lxi. pp. 55, 56, pl. ii.). In 1776 P. Sonnerat (Voy. Nouv. Guinee, p. 87, pl. 50) again described and 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 1 Le Valliant (Sec. Voy. Afrique, ii. p. 273) truly states that Kolben in 1719 (Caput Bonae Spei hodiernum, p. 182, French version, ii. p. 198) had mentioned this bird under its local name of "Snakeeater" (Slangenvreeter, Dutch translation, i. p. 214); but that author, who was a bad naturalist, thought it was a Pelican and also confounded it with the Spoonbill, which is figured to illustrate his account of it the Planches enluminees (721); in 1780 Buffon (Oiseaux, vii. p. 33 o) published some additional information derived from Querhoent, saying also that it was to be seen in some English menageries; and the following year J. Latham (Synopsis, i. p. 20, pl. 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 (Ill. Nat. History, xxviii.), which plate appears also in Shaw's Cimelia Physica (No. 28) and is a misleading caricature

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