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ACCIPITER. HAWK. 



The genus Accipiter is composed of birds, generally of mode- 

 rate size, which collectively occupy a station intermediate be- 

 tween the Falcons, Buzzards, and Harriers. Some of the larger 

 species approach in form to those of the genus Buteo, and being 

 proportionally more robust, with shorter and stronger tarsi, and 

 a less elongated tail, have by some been formed into a separate 

 genus, to which the name of Astur is given ; while the smaller 

 and more slender species are taken to constitute the genus Ac- 

 cipiter or Nisus. It does not however appear to me that the dif- 

 ferences as to form and proportions between the largest and the 

 smallest of these species are sufficient to constitute generic cha- 

 racters. The body in all is light, rather broad anteriorly, very 

 narrow behind ; the neck short or of moderate length ; the head 

 rather large, roundish or broadly ovate, and flattened above. 



Bill short, stout, compressed toward the end ; upper man- 

 dible with its dorsal line decurved from the base, nearly in the 

 fourth of a circle, the ridge convex, the sides sloping and some- 

 what convex, the edges sharp and overlapping, with a promi- 

 nent broad lobe beyond the middle, the tip trigonal, a little 

 concave beneath, and deflected ; lower mandible with the angle 

 wide and rounded, the dorsal line convex, the ridge broad, 

 the sides rounded toward the end, the edges inflected, the tip 

 obliquely truncate and rounded. 



Mouth rather wide ; palate flat, with two prominent longi- 

 tudinal lines ; upper mandible slightly concave, lower deeply 

 channelled ; tongue short, fleshy, concave above, rounded and 

 slightly emarginate. (Esophagus wide, about the middle di- 

 lated into a large crop ; proventricular glands small, oblong, 

 forming a complete belt. Stomach roundish or oblong, a little 

 compressed, its muscular coat very thin and composed of a 

 single series of fasciculi, its inner coat smooth and soft ; intes- 



