INTRODUCTION, 123 
of palms and by no means on other Birds or Beasts which need 
to be torn to pieces. It is a nocturnal Bird, dwelling in the 
deepest recesses of caves, wherein it makes a nest (shaped like a 
cheese) of the soil of guano found by it within the cave, in which 
the rejected seeds of palms enter as constituents. The young 
are very fat, and are sometimes eaten by persons who manage 
not to be disgusted with the odour which is peculiar to them. 
Passing on now to true Birds of Prey, we may first refer to 
the Sparrow-hawk (Accipiter nisus) as an example. It is still 

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The Oil-bird (Steatornis caripensis). 
more or less common in most of our counties. There are two- 
and-twenty other members of this genus, which is united with 
nine other genera to form an Accipitrine group of eighty-two 
species, amongst which is our Goshawk (Astur palumbarius) 
and the Marsh Harrier (Circus eruginosus). 
The Kite (Milvus regalis) was, a hundred years ago, a very 
common English Bird, but now it is only an occasional visitant. 
Its deeply forked tail and habit, when on the wing, of sailing 
in circles without apparent effort serve to distinguish it easily. 
The Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) is an example of a 
