ACCIPITRES. 



ORDER I. ACCIPITRES. 



(Birds of Prey.) 



Like the carnivorous quadrupeds, these birds 

 are fitted, by their structure, for a life of rapine. 

 For the most part they feed on living flesh, de- 

 rived from quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, or fishes, 

 which they pursue and capture by their own 

 strength and prowess. Their natural weapons are 

 not less effective than those with which their mam- 

 malian representatives are armed. The beak is 

 strong, crooked, with the point acute and curving 

 downward, and the edges trenchant and knife- 

 like; their feet also are very muscular, and the 

 four toes are armed with powerful talons, long, 

 curved, and pointed, of which those of the hind 

 and innermost toes are the strongest. In the 

 family of the Vultures, however, which feed on 

 the flesh of animals already dead, these charac- 

 ters are much less developed, particularly those 

 which belong to the talons, the true weapons of 

 the more raptorial kinds, the beak being used in 

 both mainly as an instrument of dissecting the 

 food, not of slaying it. 



The base of the beak is enveloped in a naked 

 skin, called the cere, in which the nostrils are 

 pierced : the stomach is simple, consisting of a 

 membranous sac without a muscular gizzard. The 

 breast-bone is broad, and in most cases completely 

 ossified, without openings, so as to afford a greater 



