18 Beautiful Secretary Birds Showing Of Their Incredible Eyelashes

The International Ornithologists' Union has designated "secretarybird" the official common name for the species. In 1780 the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon suggested that the name secretary/secrétaire had been chosen because of the long quill-like feathers at the top of the bird's neck,reminiscent of a quill pen behind the ear of an ancient scribe. In 1977, C. Hilary Fry of Aberdeen University suggested that "secretary" is from the French secrétaire, a corruption of the Arabic صقر الطير saqr et-tair meaning either "hawk of the semi-desert" or "hawk that flies". Glenn has dismissed this etymology on the grounds that there is no evidence that the name came through French, instead supporting Buffon's etymology; namely, that the word comes from the Dutch secretaris "secretary", used by settlers in South Africa