48 FALCONID^}. 



"beautifully marked with light and dark streaks, blotches, and 

 spots, on a purplish ground; some have a lighter ground and 

 darker spots, but, as birds' eggs are merely the painted outside 

 shell of the embryo young within, they vary much in colour and 

 size — even of the same species. And yet there is hardly a more 

 interesting subject for study in Nature's world than a bird's egg. 

 The shell itself is a marvel. If you notice a fowl seeking food 

 you will see it picking up small bits of shells, bones, sand, and 

 gravel. Now these are the materials from which the shell of 

 the egg is made — chiefly of carbonate of lime — which the bird 

 has the marvellous power of dissolving and spreading with equal 

 thickness over the whole surface of the egg, which at first has 

 only the thin skin over it which we find under the shell, so 

 that when laid, the young bird comes forth enclosed in the most 

 perfect mineral packing-box in the world. 



I need not follow this interesting subject further, but merely 

 say that from Hewitson's beautiful " Coloured Illustrations of 

 the Eggs of British Birds" I see the eggs of this vulture are 

 about 2f inches long by 2 J inches in diameter. The size of 

 the bird shot in Somersetshire was 5 feet 9 inches across the 

 wings, and 2 feet 7 inches from beak to tip of tail. From this 

 brief sketch my readers can form a fair idea of the two rare 

 vultures found in Britain. 



The Falconid^:. 



As I have placed the vultures, through these two rare 

 foreigners, first in the order of the Raptores, I set down this 

 Falconidae next, as the true first of the order — the Gypogeranidse 

 is awanting — none of this family having been found in Britain. 

 The Falconidse, which therefore form the second typical family 

 of the order in Britain, embrace all birds of prey that feed in 

 the day time, in distinction to the owls or nocturnal birds of 

 prey, which constitute the third and last family of the order. 

 (Linnaeus and other systematists included all the diurnal birds 

 of prey in the extensive genus Falco). In these, except in the 

 species immediately connected with the vultures, the head is 

 clothed with feathers, the bill short and strong — much hooked ; 

 and in the typical species, such as the true falcons, curving from 

 the base, which is covered with a naked coloured cere (all that 

 is left of the naked head of the vulture). The nostrils are in 

 the cere, the legs are muscular and strong — but not very long — 



