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FALCO. FALCON. 



The Falcons are by most ornithologists considered the typi- 

 cal birds of the great family to which they belong, or those 

 possessing in the greatest perfection the peculiar characters by 

 which the second group of the diurnal rapacious birds is distin- 

 guished. It appears to me that there is little occasion for dis- 

 puting the pre-eminence thus assigned to them. They are 

 birds of small or moderate size, of a compact form, remarkably 

 muscular, with the anterior part of the body very broad and 

 deep ; the neck short ; the head large, round, and flattened 

 above. 



The bill short, very strong, of nearly equal breadth and 

 height at the base, moderately compressed toward the end : 

 upper mandible with a broad cere, the dorsal line convex from 

 the base, the ridge rounded, the sides convex, the edges ante- 

 riorly thin and overlapping, with a medial festoon or convex 

 prominence, and an anterior angular process, usually called a 

 tooth, the tip trigonal, acute, decurved, with its lower part 

 nearly perpendicular to the gape-line ; lower mandible with 

 the angle wide and rounded, the dorsal line very convex, the 

 back broad and convex, the edges involute, with a rounded 

 notch on each side near the tip, which is truncate. 



Mouth wide ; upper mandible internally nearly flat, with a 

 prominent central line, lower deeply concave, with a slight 

 ridge ; palate flat, with two longitudinal soft, minutely papil- 

 late ridges. Tongue short, fleshy, concave above, sagittate and 

 papillate at the base, with the sides nearly parallel, the tip 

 rounded and emarginate. (Esophagus wide, with a large dila- 

 tation or crop ; its walls thin, the inner coat smooth, when 

 contracted forming longitudinal plicae. Proventricular glands 

 oblong or cylindrical, arranged so as to form a complete belt, 

 somewhat marked with longitudinal depressions. Stomach 



