CHAPTER VIII. 
RAPTORES, ‘OR’ BIRDS OF | PREY, 
THE Raptores enjoy a greater amount of public notoriety than almost 
any other birds, although they are of little or no service to us, and 
possess infinitely fewer claims on our interest than a multitude of 
other winged creatures. The audacity and courage by which several 
species are distinguished, the marvellous stories to which their exploits 
have given rise, and the superstitious terror caused by their appear- 
ance may help to explain the reason of this notoriety. Poets and 
novel-writers, in order to characterise their heroes, often inspire 
them with the qualities or defects of some of the rapacious birds. 
They have made the eagle a type of nobility, strength, and valour ; 
the vulture the incarnation of cowardice and unclean gluttony. The 
owl, with its staring aspect and noiseless flight, has been made a bird 
of ill omen ; its doleful hoot echoing through the shades of night, 
over the house of sickness, being regarded as an infallible prediction 
of death. These superstitions have had considerable influence 
upon popular imagination, and have thus passed into habitual use in 
conversation. 
The Rapacious order is characterised by a very strong, hooked, 
and sharp-edged bill, which is furnished at its base with a membrane 
called the cere—it is generally of a yellow colour, and upon it the 
nostrils open ; strong legs, covered with feathers ; four toes, three in 
front and one behind, which are usually very flexible, and provided 
with crooked and retractile talons, often possessed of great strength. 
Their powers of vision are very great, and they are marvellously 
organised for flight, their long and vigorous wings enabling them to 
hover in the highest regions of the air, and to travel over immense 
distances in an incredibly short space of time. 
Their generic name sufficiently indicates that they live by plunder 
and blood-shedding. ‘They correspond, in the class of birds, with the 
carnivora among mammalia. Like them, they live on animals, either 
