Melissa Clark, age 8, of Burlington, Vt., for her question:

HOW DID THE SECRETARY BIRD GET ITS NAME?

A secretary bird is a large African bird that looks like a hawk.

Its name comes from the tufts of narrow feathers standing out from the sides and back of its head. The tufts look like the quill pens that busy secretaries and clerks once carried behind their ears.

You'll find secretary birds in many zoos. But in the wilds, you'll find them at home from Ethiopia and the Sudan to the Cape of Good Hope Province in Africa.

The bird stands about four feet high and has long legs and a long tail. It usually prefers running to flying. It builds a bulky nest in a tree or bush and lays two or three eggs at a time.

Secretary birds eat frogs, insects, lizards, small tortoises and snakes. Sometimes the bird will fly into the air with its prey and kill it by dropping it.

South African farmers ,sometimes tame secretary birds and keep them to kill rats.