ae BIRDS. 
neck and breast of the young, until the fourth year inclusive, are of 
a brown colour, more or less deep. This bird is the Phene of the 
Greeks, and the Ossifraga of the Latins.* 
Fatco, Lin. 
The Falcons form the second, and by far most numerous division of 
the diurnal birds of prey. Their head and neck are covered with 
feathers; their eye-brows project, which occasions the eye to appear 
sunk, and gives to their physiognomy a character very different from 
that of the Vultures: the greater number prey on living animals, but 
they differ much from one another in the courage with which they pursue 
it. Their first plumage is often very differently coloured from that of 
the adult, which is only assumed in their third or fourth year, a circum- 
stance which has occasioned a great multiplication of species by natural- 
ists. The female is generally one-third larger than the male, which, on 
this account, is styled a tarsel, or tiercel. We shall, first of all, subdivide 
this genus into two great sections. 
NOBLE BIRDS OF PREY. 
Faxco, Bechst. Fatcons, properly so called. 
The true Falcons constitute the first, and, in proportion to their size, 
are the most courageous, a quality which is derived from the power of 
their arms and wings; their bill, curved from its base, has a sharp tooth 
on each side of its point, and the second quill of their wings is the longest, 
the first nearly equalling it, which renders the whole wing longer and 
more pointed. From this, also, result peculiar habits; the length of the 
quills and of their wings diminishes their vertical power, and compels them, 
in a calm state of the atmosphere, to fly very obliquely forwards, so that 
when they wish to rise directly upwards, they are obliged to fly against 
the wind. These birds are the most docile and the most serviceable of 
all those employed by falconers, who teach them to pursue game, and to 
return at their call. Their wings are longer than their tails. 
F. communis, Gm.{ (The Common Falcon). As large as a 
hen, and distinguished bya triangular, black moustache on the cheek, 
larger than that of any other species of the genus; it varies as to 
colours nearly in the following manner: when young, it is brown 
above, the feathers edged with reddish; underneath whitish, with 
longitudinal brown spots. As it increases in age, the spots on the 
belly and thighs have a tendency to form transverse blackish lines, 
and the white increases on the throat and root of the neck; the 
plumage on the back, at the same time, becomes more uniform, and 
* Savigny, Ois. d Egyp. et de Syrie, p. 18, in the great work on Egypt, was the 
first who firmly established this synonyme. 
+ We must take especial care not to refer to this species the pretended varieties 
of the Falco communis given by Gmelin. ‘Thus the var. a, Frisch. 74, is a Buzzard; 
d, 1d. 75, is a Booted Buzzard; e, Id. 80, the Falco pygargus, L.; th, Id. 76, a Buz- 
zard somewhat paler than usual; ’, Aldrov. 494, a very distinct species, &c. On 
the contrary, the F’. islandicus, barbarus, aud peregrinus may all be the Common Fal- 
con at different periods of moulting. 
