202 CLASS AVES. 



species ; sometimes the upper parts are reddish, spotted with 

 black ; sometimes the top of the head is shaded, more or less 

 with a clear blue, and sometimes it becomes entirely white. 



The American Sparrow Hawk, or Falcon Malfini {Spar- 

 verliis, Lath.), is a Transatlantic bird : it is found in Carolina, 

 Cayenne, St. Domingo, and the Antilles. Lizards, grass- 

 hoppers, &c., form the principal aliment of this bird : it also 

 attacks young chickens ; it is more sociable in the Antilles 

 than in North America. It nestles in forests on the tops of 

 the largest trees. In Paraguay its nest has been found in the 

 hollows of ti-ees, and even in the galleries of churches. It is 

 remarkable enough that, in the first places mentioned, it lays 

 four eggs, and in the second but two ; and M. d'Azzara adds, 

 that the number of esss is' less in South America than in North. 



CO 



The Ritfus-backed Kestrel, or Mountain Falcon (rupicolis), 

 is a native of the Cape. This bird, which often utters the 

 syllables cri, cri, cri, passes the entire year in the most rocky 

 mountains, where it lives on small mammifera, lizards, and 

 insects. It constructs a nest on a level on the rocks, composed 

 of twigs and grass. The female lays six or eight red eggs. 



The Bohemian falcon inhabits the loftiest mountains of 

 that country ; subsists on mice and field-mice, and only hunts 

 in the evening. 



The Maritime Falcon would seem, from its habits, to be a 

 vulture. It is found on the coasts of the island of Java, and 

 subsists on fish and rotten flesh. We pass over a number of 

 species which have been named and described, but of whose 

 habits nothing is known, and the correctness of whose alloca- 

 tions, in many instances, may be deemed more than doubtful. 



On the Gerfalcon, we shall say a few words more at 

 large. 



Besides the tooth, very marked, and sometimes double at 

 the upper part of the beak in the true falcons, being almost 

 wanting in the gerfalcons, the slope in the lower mandible of 

 the latter is less defined. They have also one-third of the 



