1/2 FALCONIFORMES 



marshes, or poised aloft with its Ijroad expanded tail alone in 

 motion, a " creaking " or " neighing " alarm-note heing apparently 

 the only cry. Twenty or thirty nests are commonly hiult close 

 together, and are slight platforms of twigs or plant-stems, with 

 a lining of aquatic herbage, supported on the reeds or bushes a 

 few feet above the water. The two or three eggs are wliitish 

 with reddish- or yellowish-brown and grey blotches. The breeding- 

 quarters are constantly changed. 



Machaerorhamjjlius alcinus, of Tenasserim, Malacca, Borneo, 

 Sumatra, and New Guinea, is especially remarkable for the wide 

 gape of the short bill, which recalls that of the Caprimulgidae. All 

 the tail-coverts are unusually elongated, a fine crest of pointed 

 feathers adorns the occiput, and the plumage is black with a 

 chocolate tinge, the throat and middle of the chest being white, with 

 a broad black streak down the former. M. anderssoni, of Damara- 

 Land, the Cameroons, and Madagascar, known to have crepuscular 

 tendencies and to feed partly on bats, is smaller, and lias a white 

 abdomen ; M. revoili, of Somali-Laiul, is intermediate. 



Pernis apivorus, the Honey-Biizzard, which still breeds occasion- 

 ally in Britain in June, when the dense foliage easily causes it 

 to be overlooked, inhal^its Europe generally, and probably extends 

 to Japan, migrating m winter to Madagascar and South Africa. 

 The extremely complex phases of plumage make it uncertain 

 whether it shares the Indian Eegion with the similar but crested 

 P. 2)tilor]iynchus (crislatus). from which P. Uveeddalii, of Sumatra, 

 is doubtfully separable. The upper parts are brown, witli greyish 

 head and three or four dark bands on the tail, the lower white 

 with brown spots and bars. White mottlings usually shew above, 

 and the female has the crown brown. Tlie shortly-feathered 

 lores distinguish Pernis from Buteo. Our woodland species feeds 

 upon tlie ground, and devours l)ees, wasps, and grubs — though 

 not honey — from the comb, together with small mammals, birds, 

 slugs, and worms ; the cry is shrill, but seldom lieard ; the nest, 

 composed of sticks lined with leaves, contains two or three whitish 

 eggs with rich purplish-red or brown markings. P. ceUhensis 

 differs in the rufous chest, which exhibits black streaks, that are 

 continued to the white throat with its black longitudinal band ; the 

 adult closely resembles Limnaetus lanceolatas, both being peculiar 

 to Celebes. Heniarpernis longicandatus, of Papuasia, is brown 

 barred with black above, and white streaked with blackish below, 



