On the Groups of the Falconidce. 327 



to each other as to give the appearance of but one continued 

 covering to the acrotarsiuin. To these I would restore the old 

 title by which they were so long distinguished of 



AcciPJTER, Auct. 

 and which having been adopted by Ray and Brisson, appears to 

 have a prior right in designating the group to the names bestowed 

 on it by modern naturalists. It corresponds with the genus Nisus 

 of M. Cuvier. Our common Sparrow hawk, Accipiter fringil- 

 larius* of Ray, is the type of the genus, to which may be added 

 many corresponding species, which do not seem to have any limits 

 to their geographical distribution. 



There are some species which seem to be allied to this stirps 

 and to be intermediate between it, and the succeeding stirps of 

 Falcons, which, from some peculiarities of character, cannot well 

 be appended to any established genus. They possess a shortness 

 of wing which would incline us to refer them to some of the present 

 groups : but their upper mandible strongly and doubly dentated, 

 presents a character that will not admit of their being included 

 in any of the foregoing genera in which the mandibles are entire, 

 or where the place of the tooth is supplied by a rounded pro- 

 minence. These species I should have wished if possible to have 

 arranged in one genus ; but they are found to ditFer in essential 

 points, which bring them respectively within the pale of the two 

 conterminous sliq>cs now under consideration. And although I 

 do not in general wish to encrease the number of genera belong- 

 ing to the present family, until we have attained a more extensive 

 and accurate knowledge of the species, I feel obliged for the sake 

 of perspicuity to adopt the following genus, of which the type is 

 the i'\ bidenlalus, Lath. 



IIarpagus. 

 The essential characteristick of this group is the double tooth 

 on both the upper and lower mandible. The wings, which cor- 

 respond with those of the other Hawks, in being one third shorter 



• I know not why tliis term should have been altered into that of Nisus: 

 the bird into wliicli tlio fathiT of Scylla was clianged was certainly a fishing 

 Eagle. Sec I'e.v.na.nt, Bril. Zool. Vol. J. j). 208. Ed. bvo. OviD. Met. Lib. 8. 



