666 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS: ZOOLOGY. 



the adults, all the feathers being fringed with tawny and some of them 

 notched on their concealed surface with white. 



Geogmphical Range. — From southern Texas and Arizona, south 

 throughout the tropical and subtropical parts of Mexico, Central and South 

 America to the Straits of Magellan ; does not occur in the West Indies. 



The series of the Aplomado Falcon secured by Mr. Hatcher and his 

 co-workers attest the abundance of this bird in the extreme south of 

 Patagonia, and being collected at different times of the year, the birds 

 composing this set show the extremes of variation in plumage. This 

 falcon usually selects some low bush or tree, a cactus or yucca, as a nesting 

 site ; the eggs are dull white or buffy white, thickly speckled and irregu- 

 larly marked and spotted with deep shades of brown. 



"This specimen was shot in a small valley on the plains of Patagonia, 

 at Port Desire, in Lat. 47° 44'. It builds its nest in low bushes, and the 

 female was sitting on the eggs in the beginning of January. Egg, 1.8 of 

 an inch in longer diameter, and 1.4 in shorter; surface rough with white 

 projecting points; color nearly uniform dirty "wood brown," thickly freck- 

 led with rather a darker tint ; general appearance, as if it had been rubbed 

 in brown mud. M. D'Orbigny supposed that Latitude 34° was the 

 southern limit of this species ; we now find its range three hundred and 

 thirty miles further southward. The same author states that this falcon 

 prefers a dry open country with scattered bushes, which answers to the 

 character of the valleys in the plains near Port Desire." (Darwin in 

 Gould's Zoology of Voyage of H. M. S. Beagle, Birds, p. 28, 1841.) 



Genus CERCHNEIS Boie. 



Type. 



Cerc/meis, Boie, Isis, 1826, p. 970; Sharpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. 



Mus. i. p. 423 (1874); Sharpe, Hand-list Bds. i. p. 



276 (1899) C. riipicola. 



Erythropus, Brehm, Isis, 1828, p. 1270 C. vespertina. 



yEgypms, Kaup, Natiirl. Syst. p. 20 (1829, nee Savign.) C. tinmiucula. 



Penny sc hi stes, Kaup, Natiirl. Syst. p. 87 (1829) . . . C vespertina. 



Falcnia, Hodgs. J. A. S. B. 1837, P- 3^5 ^- timmnada. 



Tichovnis, Kaup, Classif Saug. u. Vog. p. 108 (1844). . C. nanmanni. 



Pcecilornis, Kaup, t. c. p. 108 (1844) C sparveria. 



Dissodectes, Sclater, P. Z. S. 1864, p. 248 C dickersoni. 



Geographical Range. — The entire world except Oceania. 



