540 



SYSTEM A TIC SYNOPSIS. — BAP TOMES — A CCIPITBES. 



the throat, neck all ai'ound, and more or less of fore hack and hreast whitish, spotted and chiefly 

 barred with blackish ; upper and under tail-coverts and most of the tail white, the latter very 

 numerously barred with blackish, of which color is the broad terminal zone ; the shafts white 

 along the white portion of each feather. Basal portion of primaries likewise barred with 

 whitish. Bill variously pale colored ; cere carmine j iris brown ; feet yellow ; claws black ; 

 soft parts drying to a dingy indefinable color. Young similar, but rather brownish, the mark- 

 ings of the body in lengthwise streaks, not cross-bars ; tail, however, barred. Length (either 

 sex) 21.00-23.00; extent about 48.00; wing 14.50-16.50; tail 8.00-10-00; tarsus about 3.60; 



Fig. 379. — The Caracara, i nat. size. (Prom Brehm.) 



middle toe without claw 2.00. I describe the N. Am. bird, which is much less extensively 

 barred than that of S. Am. (See Cassiu, Pr. Phila. Acad., 1865, p. 2.) The difference in 

 several specimens handled is striking, nearly the whole body, wings, and tail of the S. Am. bird 

 being multitudinoualy rayed across, while in Texas and Florida specimens the body and wing- 

 coverts are mostly uniform, the barring being restricted to the neck and fore half of the body, 

 and to the primaries and tail-feathers. If I have compared age for age, the bird is certainly 

 different. P. Iwtosus is barred throughout, and otherwise different again. S. border of U. S., 

 Florida to L. Cala. and southward, common, in some places abundant, gregarious like k 

 turkey-buzzard where offal is exposed. Nests bulky, in trees and bushes, of sticks and 



