230 Summary Description of Falconidce. [April, 



The following characters of the bill and other members and or- 

 gans apply equally to the foregone, and to that which will be pre- 

 sently described. The bill is shorter than the head, moderately 

 compressed, scarcely arched from the base, and scarcely straight at it, 

 distinctly festooned, and moderately hooked, with the tip of the 

 lower mandible very slightly truncated. 



The cere is moderately sized, and covered on the sides with down 

 and soft hairs, which latjer scarcely reach forward to the nares. The 

 nares are almost vertical, ovate, angulated, and smallish. The orbits, 

 clad ; the cartilage of the brows, nude and prominent ; the eye, ra- 

 ther large ; the tarsi, long, slender, and plumed ; the toes of medial 

 unequal length and thickness ; slenderer and longer than in Aquila or 

 in Buteo, not so long or so fine as in the noble hawks and falcons, 

 although, as in them, possessed of rough soles and large balls ; 

 acropodia, reticulate, with three or four scales next the talons. The 

 outer toe is connected with the central by a membrane : the talons, 

 long, acute, and unequal, as much so as in the noblest of the hawks ; 

 the hind talon, largest, and all flat beneath. 



The wings and tail are as strong and firm as in the finest of the 

 Falconine race. The tail consists of 12 equal and broad feathers. 

 The wings reach only to its centre. The fifth quill is the longest : 

 but the fourth and sixth are nearly equal to it ; the first considerably, 

 the second and third, moderately and equally, graduated up to the 

 longest ; first to sixth inclusively emarginate, high up, on the inner 

 web, and second to seventh, on the outer. 



Species Grandis, (mihi.) 



I have been able to procure but one species of this bird, which was 

 taken alive, and lived in confinement upwards of three years. It died 

 in December, in full plumage. It was a male, and answered to the 

 following description. The iris is brown ; the cere and toes, yellow ; 

 the bill, blue, its tip and the talons, black. Head, neck, body, and 

 wings, saturate brown above, beneath white, stained with rufous ; the 

 tail, above, slaty-blue. The cheeks, chin, throat, and breast exhibit 

 on each plume a central broad stripe of dark brown, following the 

 shaft, and margined on either side with rufous, on a white ground. 

 The thighs are, herring-boned with brown ; and the tarsi and vent, 

 narrowly streaked lengthwise with the same colour. The under tail 

 coverts transversely barred with mixed rufous and brown : and the 

 ground colour of the thighs and tarsi, for the most part, rufous. The 

 lining of the wings is an irregular mixture of the hues of the upper 

 and lower surfaces : or saturate brown and white, stained with 

 rufous. There are six narrow, irregular cross bars on the tail, with 



