RAPTORES. FALCONIDJE. 9 



great strength and activity, and the typical groups possess a 

 power of flight both as to duration and swiftness, superior to 

 most of the feathered race ; their vision is also wonderfully 

 acute, and they are distinguished for courage and audacity. 

 They prey almost entirely upon living creatures, which they 

 either strike upon the wing (the mode adopted by the typi- 

 cal genera) or pounce upon the ground, like the Buzzards 

 and Kites. Birds and quadrupeds are the usual food of most 

 of the species ; some, however, prey on fish, and others prin- 

 cipally subsist upon the larger coleopterous insects. They 

 tear their prey in pieces with their bill and claws, and parts 

 of the feathers and fur being swallowed with the flesh, are 

 afterwards ejected (together with the bones and other indi- 

 gestible portions) in pellets by the mouth. They generally 

 lead a wandering and solitary life, except in the season of 

 incubation, or at farthest continue associated in pairs as 

 male and female, which is sometimes observed in birds of 

 the aquiline kind. The numbers of this family, as might be 

 expected from their typical character, are very numerous, 

 and distributed over every portion of the globe. Many of 

 the species in their progress from the young to the adult 

 state, (which in some is not attained before the third, in 

 others the fourth or fifth year), undergo great and remarkable 

 changes. This circumstance, from a want of observation, and 

 indeed very often of opportunity for close investigation, has 

 given rise to several errors among writers on Ornithology, 

 and has caused great confusion, and a consequent incorrect 

 multiplication, of species. The gradual increase of know- 

 ledge, in this, as well as other branches of Zoology, and the 

 labour of several recent naturalists (among whom stand pro- 

 minent the names of TEMMiNcxand MONTAGU), have, how- 

 ever essentially contributed to the development of these sin- 

 gular and unexpected changes of plumage, and cleared up 

 many of the doubts and difficulties, in which the history of 

 several species had been so long involved. By many modern 

 ornithologists, five subordinate divisions or subfamilies, 



