OSPREY. UAPTORES. PANDION. 27 



generally having that part immaculate. Belly, vent, 

 thighs, and under tail-coverts, white. 

 The whole of the upper part of the body umber-brown, in 

 some individuals the feathers margined paler. Two 

 middle tail-feathers umber-brown, the rest transversely 

 barred with white on their inner webs. Greater quills 

 blackish-brown. Legs short, of a greyish-blue colour ; 

 the tarsi covered with rough reticulated scales. Toes 

 armed with very long talons, which are cylindrical, be- 

 ing rounded beneath, and the outer one the largest. 



SUB-FAMILY ACCIPITRINA. 



Bill bending from the base, with a prominent lobe, or fes- 

 toon, upon the cutting margin of the upper mandible. 

 Wings short, and when closed not reaching beyond two- 

 thirds of the length of the tail. The fourth quill-feather 

 generally the longest in the wing. Legs rather slender and 

 long. 



The passage from the aquiline group is effected by cer- 

 tain species in which the wings become shortened, and the 

 tarsi slender. To the Falcons the Hawks are nearly allied 

 in habit ; as their prey (consisting of birds and mammalia) 

 is taken entirely upon wing ; dead subjects and carrion being 

 refused by them even when pressed by hunger. Their mode 

 of attack on birds is, however, different, being generally 

 in an oblique line, or in rapid evolutions, near the earth, 

 and not by outsoaring and then pouncing down upon them 

 from above. Their bill also wants the strength of that of 

 the true falcons, the sides being more compressed ; and in- 

 stead of the marked tooth of the upper mandible, and the 

 corresponding notch in the lower, it is only furnished with 

 the marginal lobe or simiatioii above mentioned. Their near 

 affinity to the Buzzards (Sub-Family Buteonina) is support- 

 ed by certain species of the latter, which approach in many 



