On the Affinities of the Falconidce. 317 



truncated but rounded. We shall only notice the cha- 

 racters of one more of his genera, viz. Haliaetus. Size and 

 form intermediate between Astur and Aquila; bill large, 

 straight when covered by the cere, strongly curved and 

 hooked beyond ; margin with a slight festoon in the mid- 

 dle ; cere rather large, occupying nearly one-third the length 

 of the bill ; nostrils oval, obliquely transverse ; wings length- 

 ened, the third quill longest, feet rather short; tarsi slen- 

 der, feathered beyond the knees ; the front and back smooth ; 

 anterior scale transverse ; posterior as if in one entire piece ; 

 lateral scales, and those at the base of the toes, very small 

 and distinctly reticulate ; toes strong ; inner toe the short- 

 est of all ; claws grooved beneath, unequal, hinder and inner 

 nearly of the same size, outmost much smaller than the 

 middle; tail broad, rounded. Type, H. pondicerianus. 



How Mr. Swainson can make the above characters corres- 

 pond with those of his subfamily Accipitrinse, under which 

 the genus Haliaetus is arranged, is quite extraordinary. Thus 

 to the family he assigns, bill short, and cere moderate ; — 

 now in the genus the bill and cere are large. In the family 

 the wings are short ; in the genus they are long. In the 

 family the tarsus is naked ; in the genus they are feathered 

 below the knees ! These characters are quite sufficient 

 to shew that this genus has nothing to do with the family 

 to which it has been assigned. Moreover the absurdity 

 of giving size as a generic character, must be evident to 

 all who have paid attention to this department of Natural 

 History. For example, is the A. pennata not equally charac- 

 teristic in representing the genus Aquila as the A. imperialis, 

 chryraetos, or nigra ? Is the Larus minutus not equally en- 

 titled to represent the genus Larus, as the Larus glaucus 

 or marinus ? Again, by this character the male and female 

 of certain species of Falconidae met with in New Holland 

 would be put under separate divisions, seeing that the former 

 is not a third as large as the latter. The same remark 



