242 AVES, 



Pernis, Cuv. (l) 



The Honey-Buzzards, with the weak beak of the Kites, have a very 

 peculiar character in the space between the eye and the beak, which, 

 in all the rest of the genus Falco, is naked, and simply furnished 

 with a few hairs, but in these is covered with a dense plumage, the 

 feathers of which are cut like scales j their tarsi are half feathered 

 above and reticulated : their tail is equal, wings long, and their beak 

 curved from its base like all those which follow. There is but one 

 species in Europe. 



F. apivorus i la Bondr'ee Commune, Enl. 420 j Naum. 35, 36. 

 (The Common Honey-Buzzard.) Somewhat smaller than the Buz- 

 zard 5 brown above j variously undulated with brown and whitish 

 beneath ; the head of the male ash coloured at a certain age. It 

 pursues Insects, and, principally. Bees and Wasps. 

 There are some others in foreign countries. 



F. cristata, Cuv. (The crested Honey-Buzzard of Java.) All 

 brown j head, ash coloured, like that of Europe j but it has a 

 black tail, with a whitish band on the middle ; a brown crest on 

 the occiput. Brought from Java by M. Leschenault.(2) 



BuTEo, Bechstein. 



The Buzzards have long wings ; the tail equal ; the beak curved 

 from its base j the space between it and the eyes, naked j the feet, 

 strong. 



The tarsi of some of them are feathered down to the toes. They 

 are distinguished from the Eagles by the curving of their beak from 

 the base, and from the Goshawks, or Goshawk-Eagles, with feather- 

 ed tarsi, by their long wings. 



F. lagopus, Gm. j(2) the Booted Buzzard, Frisch, Ixxv; 

 Vaill. Afr. xviii j Wilson, IV, xxxiii, 1 j Naum. 34. Irregularly 

 variegated with a darker or lighter brown, and a more or less 

 yellowish white. It is one of the most universally diffused birds ; 



kahlii, Gmel., the F. parasiticus. Lath, and Shaw; F. mississipiensts, Wils. HI, 

 XXXV, 1, or the Ictinie ophiophage, Vieill. Galer. pi. 17. 



N. B. The Falc. austriacus, Gmel., is the young of the Common Kite. 



(1) Pernis or pemes, according- to Aristotle, the name of some bird of prey. 

 N. B. The F. riocourii forms the genus Nauclerus of Vigors. 



(2) M. Temminck has figured this bird, (Col. 44,) under the name oi Buseptil- 

 orinque. 



(3) It is the i^a/co/agopws, Brit. Zool. Ap.vol. \; the Falco commimis S leucocepha- 

 lus, Frisch, 75 ; the Falco Sancti Johannis, Arct. Zool. pi. ix ; the Falc. communis 

 fuscus, F. variegatus, F. ulbidus, F. versicolor, Gm. arc merely diilerent states of the 

 Common Buzzard. 



