A HISTOBT 



BRITISH BIRDS. 



Family FALCONIDtE, or BIRDS OF PREY. 



The Birds of Prey are distinguislied by their powerful hooked bills and 

 their strong feet armed with sharp, curved, powerful talons. At the base 

 of the bill is a piece of naked skin called the cere. The Owls also possess 

 this character, but may be distinguished by their fluffy plumage and facial 

 disk. 



The Falconidse are a well-defined family ; but great difference of opinion 

 exists as to their relationship to other groups. Sclater (guided by Huxley's 

 investigations of the bones of the palate) places them in the same series 

 with the Cuckoos, the Parrots, the Owls, the Pelicans, the Herons, and the 

 Ducks. Forbes (relying largely upon Garrod's study of the muscular 

 and arterial systems) removes from this list the Cuckoos, the Parrots, and 

 the Owls, and adds to it the Petrels. Gadow, on the other hand, retains in 

 the same great division the Parrots and the Owls, rejecting the Pelicans, 

 the Herons, and the Ducks, as well as the Petrels, but adding the Pigeons 

 and the Gallinaceous birds. It will thus be seen that there is no 

 other family which these three authorities all agree to unite with the Birds 

 of Prey. I have placed them first in my arrangement because they were 

 so placed by Cuvier in his classification — a system which, although it is 

 now universally admitted to be mainly an artificial one, is so well known to 

 all ornithologists that it may well serve as an index until the natural order 

 of sequence has been discovered. 



Birds of Prey are cosmopolitan, the greatest number of species being 

 found in South America, and the fewest in the Pacific islands. Sharpe, in 



/ VOL. I. B 



