88 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 
ORDER ACCIPITRES. 
HE important Order of the Accipitres includes the remaining Raptorial birds, 
after the Owls, and is divided into two families, the Vulturide and the 
Falconide. With the Vulturide, that are distinguished by their necks being either 
bare or only covered with down, this work has no concern, as they are all in- 
habitants of warm countries, feeders upon carrion and garbage, and could not 
maintain an existence in the British Isles to which only one or two individuals 
have been drifted through some accident. The British Ornithologist who treats 
to-day of the Falconide has a sorrowful task, feeling that the pages he devotes to 
them should be edged with black, as he can only pen obituary notices of the 
majority, the traps, the poison, and the gun of the game preserver—to whose 
keepers a single Hawk existing on the properties they have the charge of would 
be considered a disgrace—having effectually exterminated the most interesting of 
the once resident species. It is but poor satisfaction to read in the admirable 
pages of Montagu and Macgillivray their animated descriptions of the Eagles, 
Harriers, Kites, and Buzzards which, in their day, were still fairly numerous as 
ornaments of our moors, woodlands, and mountains; the Naturalist would greatly 
prefer to have the opportunity of seeing these fine birds still ranging and circling 
in the air. There are but a few remote spots left where one or two may still 
maintain a precarious existence, but the Sparrow-Hawk and the Kestrel are at the 
present day the only two species that can be spoken of as generally common. 
The Falconide differ greatly from the Owls in having their plumage hard and 
compact instead of being soft and downy; in their hunting by day instead of by 
night; while the swiftest of them capture their prey after pursuit in the air, for 
the most part, instead of pouncing it upon the ground. Their heads are fairly 
