RAPTORES. 27 



and England, the Falco minor is to South Africa, the F. pere- 

 grino'ides to the peninsula of India, and the Black-cheeked 

 Falcon to Australia. All these species are of the same 

 type; but I agree with Prince Charles Lucien Bonaparte 

 and Professor Kaup in considering them to be distinct, and 

 representatives of each other in the respective countries they 

 inhabit. The Duck-Hawk of America (F. anatiim), as its 

 trivial name implies, strikes down the A?ias obscura ; while the 

 Peregrine {F. peregrinus) of Europe indulges a like taste by 

 now and then taking a Mallard (^Anas boschas); and Gilbert 

 states that he has seen the Australian bird carry off a Nyroca 

 australis — a species at least as heavy again as itself. To say, 

 therefore, that this bird could not be trained and brought into 

 use in the science of falconry would be to affirm what would 

 probably prove to be untrue were the experiment made. Let 

 the Australians, then, bestow some care upon this fine bird, and 

 not, as they are doing with the Emu and the Bustard, let it 

 be entirely eradicated from the fauna of the country. When I 

 visited the colony in 1839, it was universally dispersed over 

 the whole southern portion of Australia and Tasmania ; and 

 probably future research will discover that its range extends 

 over all parts of the continent. It gives preference to steep 

 rocky cliffs, and the sides of precipitous gullies, rather than to 

 fertile and woodland districts, but especially seeks such rocky 

 localities as are washed by the sea, or are in the neighbourhood 

 of inland lakes and rivers. In such situations it dwells in 

 pairs throughout the year, much after the manner of the 

 Peregrine. Its breeding-season is, of course, in the spring of 

 Australia — the autumn of Europe. Its nest is placed in 

 those parts of the rocks that are most precipitous and in- 

 accessible. The eggs are two in number ; their ground-colour 

 is buff; but this is scarcely perceptible, from the predominance 

 of the blotching of deep reddish chestnut with which it is 

 marbled all over ; they are two inches and one line long, by 

 one inch and seven and a half lines broad. 



