458 



FALCON, 



multiform existence, are particularly annoying to 

 mankind both within doors and without. But they 

 also are " very good," and proclaim with voices 

 louder than all the heralds upon earth, the necessity 

 of cleanliness and care. In this manner we may go 

 over the whole catalogue both of vegetable and of 

 animal pests as they are usually called, and we should 

 be able to show in the most satisfactory manner, that 

 they are all equally deserving of that benediction 

 which was bestowed Upon them at the first. 



'there is in this much to reprove our ordinary 

 conduct, and as much to teach rii how we may, if we 

 only will, listen to the reproof, and profit by the 

 lesson. We are hereby reproved for presuming to 

 Set up oUr limited knowledge and experience as a 

 standard of judgment ; and we are taught that there 

 is use and purpose in every created thing, however 

 offensive or injurious it may appear, and that it is 

 both our duty and our interest to find out this use. 

 Indeed, to find out the rises of the productions of 

 nature is the grand and only rational purpose of the 

 study of natural history ; arid if we have not this in 

 view, the study is an idle waste of tittle, no better 

 than any other Inoffensive dissipation ; and the man 

 who merely krtows the external distinctions between 

 plants in a hortus siccus, or animals iri a museum, and 

 can call them by all the different names which their 

 have got in different countries arid by different indi- 

 viduals, is really of no more Use, and therefore has 

 no more merit, than a man would have who should 

 make a collection of all the different forms arid kinds 

 of buttons that ever were worn, and be able to tell 

 the names of the makers and first wearers. One 

 Cannot help regretting that, while this perfectly insig- 

 nificant counterfeit of natural history has occupied 

 the attention of so many, the really important portion 

 of the subject should have been so much neglected ; 

 and yet this has been undoubtedly the case in almost 

 every department of nature. There are, for instance, 

 innumerable collections of shells ; but who can tell 

 anything about the animals by which those shells 

 were made and worn ? So ate there many collections 

 of foreign birds ; but who cah tell anything about 

 their manners? Even In this genUs falco, the 

 species with which we are familiar in this country 

 have been confounded, and the characters misrepre- 

 sented, down to a comparatively recent time ; and 

 when we come to those which are foreign to Europe, 

 all that We can, except iri a Very few Iristances, 

 present, is a mere catalogue of names, and a list of 

 sizes and colours. Strange productions of nature are 

 bought with great avidity as curiosities ; but it would 

 be a very good rule strictly to prohibit the introduc- 

 tion of any new plant or animal, unless its history 

 came along with it.- We require a character with a 

 strange human being, and why should we hot also 

 fequire a character with a strange beast or a strange 

 bird ? 



THE LITTLE KESTREL (Falffo tinnuncnloides) re- 

 sembles the kestrel in its form arid habits, but it is 

 smaller in size. The upper part is rust colour, Or 

 russet ; the top of the head and sides, and back of 

 the head, ash-coloured ; the coverts of the wings, the 

 rump, and the tail-coverts, bluish-ash ; the tip of the 

 tail white, within which there is a large bar of black ; 

 the under part bright reddish, spotted and lined with 

 black : the beak bluish, the feet yellow, and the 

 claws white. This species inhabits rocky situations 

 in the eastern part of Europe, but is rarely seen in 



the western parts, and never, so far as we have any 

 record, in the British islands. 



RED-FOOTED FALCON (Falco rufipes). This is also 

 a small species, and belongs to eastern Europe, but 

 it appears to be rather more discursive than the one 

 last mentioned, and we believe it has occurred in 

 sortie parts of England as an exceedingly rare 

 straggler. A specimen of this bird, which had been 

 shot near Doncaster, was exhibited before the Com- 

 mittee of Science of the Zoological Society of London 

 on the 27th of November, 1832. Its characters are : 

 bluish ash on the upper part ; breast and belly of the 

 same colour, but paler ; lower part of the belly, 

 thighs, and under tail-coverts, bright reddish ; beak 

 black ; irides and feet red ; and claws yellow, with 

 black tips. The length of the male bird is about ten 

 inches and a half. The female is a little larger, and 

 has the nape marked with reddish lines ; the sides of 

 the head and the throat bright reddish ; the under 

 part arid the thighs reddish brown, with black mark- 

 ings. The plumage of the young is intermediate 

 between that of the mature male and the mature 

 female, but differs from both, and this has led to some 

 little confusion. They have the cheeks and throat 

 white ; the breast and thighs spotted with brown ; 

 ten or twelve brown bars across the tail ; and the feet 

 yellow, and the claws whitish. 



The species of which we have given some account 

 include (as nearly as we can estimate) all the true 

 falcons which are native and resident in Europe, not 

 of course includilig the jerfalcons, which remain still 

 to be noticed, and which are in some respects the 

 most splendid birds of the genus. Of the foreign 

 ones we can only give a mere list ; and, from the 

 long confusion of the European species, which are 

 so generally known, and which were long so highly 

 esteemed by the leading people of all countries, it 

 would be too much to say that this list has many 

 pretensions to correctness. Very likely the same 

 species, of different sexes or ages, has been named 

 arid described as two ; and very likely, also, there 

 are many species hitherto unknown to us. 



TrtE AMERICAN SPARROW HAWK (Falco spar- 

 berins}. This is a bird of many names ; it is the 

 little f'alcori, the St. Domingo falcon, the New York 

 merlin, the American merlin. The female is eleven 

 inches long, arid twenty-three inches from tip to tip 

 of the expanded wings ; the cere and legs yellow ; 

 bill blue, tipped with black ; space round the eye 

 greenish blue ; iris deep dusky ; head bluish ash ; 

 crown rufous ; seven spots of black on a white 

 grotuid surround the head ; whole upper parts red- 

 dish bay, transversely streaked with black ; primary 

 and secondary quills black, spotted on their inner 

 varies with brownish white ; whole lower parts yel- 

 lowish white, marked with longitudinal streaks of 

 brown, except the chin, vent, and femoral feathers, 

 which are white ; claws black. The male sparrow- 

 hawk measures about ten inches, and is about 

 twenty-one inches in the stretch of the wings ; the 

 whole upper parts of the head are of a fine slate 

 blue, the snafts of the plumage being black, the crown 

 exceptecl, which is marked with a bright reddish 

 spot ; the slate tapers to a point on each side of the 

 neck ; seven black spots surround the head, as in 

 the female, on a reddish white ground, which also 

 borders each sloping side of the blue ; line over 

 and under the eye and chin, white ; femoral and 

 vent feathers yellowish white ; the rest of the lower 



