PANDION. 39 
Order ACCIPITRES. 
In the ‘ Nomenclator Avium Neotropicalium’ this order is divided into two families, 
Falconide and Cathartide, including the genus Pandion in the former group. The 
position of this genus has always been a difficulty with systematists. Dr. Sharpe, in 
1874, went so far as to place Pandion in a separate “suborder” Pandiones, as 
equivalent to the whole of his “ Falcones” (=Accipitres of this work) and “ Striges.”’ 
Mr. Ridgway has a group Pandiones as a section of his subfamily Buteonine. 
Dr. Coues divides his order Raptores into three suborders, viz. Cathartide, Accipitres, 
and Striges; and the Accipitres he separates into Falconide and Pandionide, an 
arrangement we think the best, and is the one adopted here, except that having placed 
the Striges ina separate order we assign to the Accipitres the same rank, and with 
them we place the Cathartide. 
Fam. PANDIONIDE. 
The reversible outer toe and the absence of an aftershaft to the feathers render 
Pandion, the only member of this family, distinct from the rest of the Accipitres. 
PANDION. 
Pandion, Savigny, Syst. Ois. Egypte, p. 9 (1810); Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. i. p. 448; 
Coues, Key N. Am. Birds, ed. 2, pp. 498, 556. 
Besides the characters given above, Pandion has close and firm plumage, the thighs 
closely feathered, and none of the feathers elongated as in most Falconide; the distal 
portion of the tarsi and the toes are naked, the feet large and strong, the claws very large 
and equal in length, not grooved beneath, but compressed, the middle claw grooved on its 
inner face; the bill has no notch or tooth at the end of the tomia, but the mandible is 
strongly hooked; the nostrils are oval, without tubercle, in the edge of the cere. The 
relative position of the distal ends of the coracoid, scapula, and furcula is the same as 
in the Buteonine section of the Falconide, the scapular process of the coracoid not 
reaching to the end of the furcula. This fact led Mr. Ridgway to place Pandion in 
his Buteonine. 
With the possible exception of the small Pandion leucocephalus of Australia and 
New Guinea, there is only one species of this genus, the range of which is given 
below. 
4. Pandion haliaetus. 
Falco haliaetus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 129% 
Pandion haliaetus, Less. Man. d’Orn. i. p. 86°; Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. i. p. 449°; Salv. Ibis, 
1889, p. 874'. 
