Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/643

Rh S E C S E C 617 engaged. But his talented and noble mother carefully watched over his education. In Coburg, Miihlhausen, and finally in Erfurt, whither his mother removed in 1636, he acquired the Latin, Greek, and French lan- guages. In 1639 he returned to Coburg, and the reign- ing duke, Ernest the Pious, made him his protege. Enter- ing the university of Strasburg in 1642, he devoted himself to history and jurisprudence. After he finished his university course his patron gave him an appointment in his court at Gotha, with the charge of his valuable library. He there laid the foundation of his great collec- tion of historical materials and mastered the principal modern languages. In 1652 he was appointed to import- ant judicial positions and sent on weighty embassages. In 1656 he was made judge in the ducal court at Jena, a position which he held many years and in which he took the leading part in the numerous beneficent reforms of the duke. In 1664 he resigned office under Duke Ernest, who had just made him chancellor and with whom he continued on excellent terms, and entered the service of Duke Maurice of Zeitz (Altenburg), with the view of lightening his official duties. After the death of Maurice in 1681 he retired to his estate, Meuselwitz in Altenburg, from nearly all public offices, and devoted himself to his intellectual labours. Although living in retirement, he kept up a correspondence with the principal learned men of the day. He was especially interested in the endeavours of the pietist Spener to effect a practical reform of the German church, although he was hardly himself a pietist. In 1692 he was appointed chancellor of the new university of Halle, but died a few weeks afterwards, on the 18th of December. Seckeudorf s principal works were the following : Deutscher Fiirstcnstaat (1656 and often afterwards), a handbook of German public law; Dcr Christenstaat (1685), partly an apology for Chris- tianity and partly suggestions for the reformation of the church, founded on Pascal's Pensecs and embodying the fundamental ideas of Spener ; Commcntarius historicus et apologeticus de Lutheranismo sive de Reformatione (3 vols., Leipsic, 1692) occasioned by the Jesuit Maimbourg's Histoire dit Lutheranismc (Paris, 1680), his most important work, and still indispensable to the historian of the Reformation as a rich storehouse of authentic materials. See D. G. Sehreber's Hlstoria vitte etc meritorum Viti Ludovici a, Seckendorf (Leipsic, 1733) ; Schrb'ckh, Lebensbeschreibungeti beriihmter Manner (Leipsic, 1790); Nasemann, "Veit Ludwig von Seckendorf," in Preussische Jahrtnicher (vol. xii., 1863, p. 257 si/.); W. Roscher, "Zwei sachsische Staatswirthe im IGteu und 17ten Jahrhundert," in Weber's Archiv fur die sachsische Geschichte (vol. i., 1862); and Theodor Kolde, "Seckendorf," in Herzog-PHtt's Realen- cyklofiridie (1884). 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 Vos- maer, 1 in a treatise published simultaneously in Dutch and French, and afterwards included in his collected works issued, under the title of Regnum Animate, 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 advanc- ing 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 1 Le Vaillaut (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 "Snake-eater" (Slangen- vreeter, 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 Ls figured to illustrate his account of it. Though he doubtless had seen, and perhaps tried to describe, the Secretary- bird, he certainly failed to convey any correct idea of it. Latham's suggestion (loc. infra cit.) that the figure of the "Grus Capensis cauda cristata" in Petiver's Gazophylacium (tab. xii. fig. 12) was meant for this bird is negatived by his description of it (p. 20). The figure was probably copied from one of Sherard's paintings and is more likely to have had its origin in a Crane of some species. Vosmaer's plate is lettered " Amerikaanischeu Roof-Vogel," of course by mistake for " Afrikaauischen. " 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 (Ixi. pp. 55, 56, pi. ii.). In 1776 Sonnerat (Voy. Nouv. Guinee, p. 87, pi. 50) again described and Secretary-Bird. 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 Enluminees (721) ; in 1780 Buffon (Oiseamc, 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 (Synopsis, 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, 2 and Cuvier in 1798 designated the genus to which it belonged, and of which it still remains the sole representative, 3 Serpentarius. Suc- ceeding systematists have, however, encumbered it with many other names, among which the generic terms Gypo- geranus and Ophwtheres, and the specific epithets reptili- vorus and cristatus, require mention here. 4 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 tibiae 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. 5 2 Curiously enough, Boddaert in 1783 omitted to give it a scientific name. 3 Ogilby's attempt to distinguish three species (Proc. Zool. Society, 1835, pp. 104, 105) has met with no encouragement ; but examples from the north of the equator are somewhat smaller than those from the south. 4 The scientific synonymy of the species is given at great length by Drs Finsch and Hartlaub ( Vogd Ost-Afrikas, p. 93) and by Mr Sharpe (Cat. B. Brit. Museum, i. p. 45) ; but each list has some errors in common. 6 It is from the fancied resemblance of these feathers to the pens which a clerk is supposed to stick above his ear that the bird's name of Secretary is really derived. XXL 78