110 A Description of the Birds 
primary quill feathers are the same as in old birds, but the 
secondaries are less distinctly banded, and the proportion of 
the white in the bands is smaller, or indeed almost wanting, 
gray being the prevailing color; the tips are white. The tail 
is banded, but the colors are in a reversed proportion, dark 
brownish black, or black beimg the most abundant or ground 
hue, and reddish white the most scanty. The latter occurs in 
the form of narrow transverse bands, about four or five on 
each feather, and the tips of all have besides a narrow edging 
of dusky white; the tail is also considerably longer in young 
specimens than in old ones*. Legs and toes shaded with 
brown ; claws nearly black; bill dark horn colored, shaded 
with yellow; eyes yellow; length of the tail ten inches and 
a half. 
Examples of these species are sometimes met with in a very 
different plumage to either of the above described; namely, 
with the under parts principally white, slightly spotted with 
black or dark brown, and more or less clouded with pale 
rufous or dirty light chesnut. The head nearly white, or 
only with shades or streaks of brown, and the back and 
shoulders brownish, with the feathers more or less distinctly 
tipt with white. 
This bird builds its nest on trees, and constructs it exter- 
nally with dried twigs, and internally with wool, hair, &c. 
It lays usually one, though sometimes two eggs, which are 
very large, and of a pure white color. Wherever South 
Africa has been explored, the present species has been met 
with, and though no where in great numbers, yet it is not so 
rare as to enable us to imagine how it escaped the notice of 
Le Vaillant. It feeds upon snakes, lizards, mice, &c. and I 
have been assured by many of the colonists that it even, at 
times, catches and devours fish. The male and female are 
usually found together ; the young birds acquire the plumage 
of maturity about the months of May or June of, perhaps, the 
second or third year. 
Genus. HELOTARSUS. Mihit. 
Rostrum superne convexum, Bill convex above,moderate- 
modice curvatum et uncinatum; | ly curved and hooked; nos- 
nares lunulate ; ceroma leve; | trils lunulate; cere smooth; 
lora subpilosa. Tarsi breves | lores thinly set with hair. 
* This is not peculiar to the Circeetus, but also occurs in the young of 
many other genera. 
t In relation to the position I have chosen for this Genus, as well as for 
that of Polyboroides, I may observe that I am not inclined to view either as 
well placed. The want, however, of the means of comparing them with the 
various other genera to which they are more or less allied, renders it neces- 
sary. for me to leave their immediate affinities to be discovered by others 
enjoying better opportunities. 
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