52 inENTIFICATION. 



longest feSther in his wing. But as this is not the case, we must 

 continue our search. Is his tarsus " scutellate/' that is plated, in 

 ■ front, and " reticulate," that is netted, at the back ; if so, his fifth 

 primary will be the longest, and he will be Halia'etus albicilla, the 

 Sea Eagle, always distinguishable at a glance from Aquila by the 

 featherless tarsus. But there are no reticulations on the back of the 

 tarsus, neither are there on -the front ; and we thus get rid of two 

 more genera, in each of which the first primary is longer than the 

 secondaries. One of these is Falco, which has breeches, or feathers 

 looking like strch, on the legs, and has also a deeply notched bill ; 

 while the other, Pandion, has no breeches, and a very faintly notched 

 bill ; in addition to which, Pandion has an outer toe that he can turn 

 backwards or forwards as if he were an Owl, and he is the only 

 Falcon that can do this ; " Falconine " had been better said, perhaps, 

 for it- seems rather far-fetched to call an Osprey a Falcon. Looking 

 again, we find our bird's tarsus has scutellatibns both in front and at 

 the back, and examining the wing we find the first primary is very 

 short. He must, consequently, belong to one of three genera. If his 

 fourth primary is the longest, and his first four primaries have a notch 

 in them, he is a Buteoj if his third and fourth primaries are the 

 longest, and he has a ruff round his neck, making him look something 

 like an Owl, he is a Circus; but if he has the fourth and fifth 

 primaries longest, he is an Accipiterj and you can confirm the 

 diagnosis by referring to his wings, which are short compared to the 

 long wings of Circus and Buteo. 



But if Accipiter is his genus, what is his species ? There are three 

 Accipiters, one of which is'but half the size of the others, so that by 

 measurement he is unmistakable. But leaving measurement alone, 

 we can discover him by his colour. If he were ashy brown above, 

 and whitish below, he would be either atricapilhis or palumbarius ; 

 the former of which has only three appearances on record, while the 

 latter is yearly becoming rarer, being no other than the once common 

 Gos Hawk, which in flight can be recognised at once by the vigorous 

 use of the tail in steering, and by the croaking sort of scream. Our 

 bird is greyish blue above, with a white patch on the nape, and he is 

 bufifish in ground colour below, the buff being barred with brown ; 

 and lastly, he is a foot long, while the Gos Hawk is nearly two. 

 There is, therefore, every reason to suppose that he is a Sparrow 

 Hawk ; and a Sparrow Hawk, Accipiter nisus, he is. 



And now, having taken an example from each end of our table, 

 from the Raptores we ruled off at the beginning, to the Passerines we 

 left at the end, on the principle that if a bird did not belong to any of 

 the other families, he must be placed there ; let us have a third and 

 last example from the main brigade — that is, the main brigade of our 

 tabulafion, and not in reality, for out of the 10,000 species of birds in 

 the world, more than half are Passerine ; and if we were to count 

 heads instead of species, the preponderance of Passerines would be 

 enormous. 



Here is a bird with four toes. Three of them are webbed to the 

 claws, and the hind toe is free from the tarsus, although it has a soit 

 of lobe to it. One look at the broad lamellate bill tells us it is a Duck. 

 The fact is too obvious to be overlooked. Let us turn up at once our 

 analysis of the Anatidae. 



