86 ACCIPITRES. 



elastic membrane, their extremities armed with sharp crooked 

 claws, generally retractile, and of firmer consistency than any 

 horny productions, except the claws of those carnivorous 

 beasts which catch or kill their prey with the paws. The 

 bills are usually called beaks, and the claws talons. Sight 

 keen and piercing, in some adapted to bear the strongest 

 light of the sun, and in others to see in the twilight, or to 

 our observation, nearly in the dark. They are capable of 

 enduring hunger longer than any other of the feathered 

 tribes, and they rarely drink. They are strictly monogamous, 

 the pair associating for life, and probably better deserving 

 that praise for constancy which poetic fancy has awarded to 

 the turtle. They never congregate in flocks ; and the more 

 powerful ones drive their progeny to a distance, obviously 

 from an instinct having a purpose similar to that which 

 makes the males of the wild gallinse fight and separate at the 

 commencement of the breeding time. The female is larger 

 than the male, sometimes much larger, and very different in 

 colour. The young birds also are generally different in 

 plumage, and some of them retain the difference so long that 

 they have been described as distinct species. 



As in the case with beasts of prey, and generally with all 

 animals whose nature it is to kill and destroy, the most pow- 

 erful are found in the wildest places; but while the powerful 

 beast lurks in the shade of the forest or the jungle, the pow- 

 erful bird braves the elements, and is found in the cold 

 latitudes, or if warm latitudes, in those wild places which are 

 cold and bleak from elevation. 



The following are sketches of the beaks of three of the 

 order, in their gradation from those that strip their prey 

 entirely of its feathers, to those that swallow it entire, and 

 return the indigestible parts in balls called " castings." 



