86 FALCONID.E. 



original tints, dark brick red upon a ground colour of pale 

 greenish-blue. 



The young birds, when excluded from the egg, are, aceord- 

 ' ing to Willoughby, covered with white down, intermixed with 

 black. Adult as well as young specimens are among those 

 recorded to have been met with in Britain : the one described 

 by Bewick in his incomparable work, appears to have been an 

 adult male, having the ash-coloured head usually observed in 

 mature age. Selby describes one which appears to be a male 

 approaching the plumage of the adult, as it has the head 

 brown, inclining to ash-colour; and Montagu's specimen, 

 which was shot in Berkshire, and since placed in the British 

 Museum, is supposed by Mr. Selby to be a female, or young 

 bird, having the under parts of the plumage brown. 



The original of our plate was a young female shot in Suf- 

 folk, and kindly sent to us for the furtherance of our work ; 

 its entire measurements were as follows : — The wing, from the 

 carpus to the tip, fifteen inches ; length of the beak, from the 

 forehead to the tip, one inch one line and a half in diameter. 



The eye is placed rather further from the beak than in the 

 genus Buteo, the front corner of it being one inch seven lines 

 from the tip of the beak. 



The toes are long, and cover a considerable space, mea- 

 suring, from the hind to the middle claw, three inches eleven 

 lines ; the middle toe measures two inches one line, thence 

 to the feathered part of the tarsus eleven lines ; the hinder 

 claw nine lines, middle and inner claws the same, the outer 

 claw rather less. In the tarsus this species differs from the 

 buzzards in having the naked part reticulated instead of 

 scaled. In this specimen the chin and the feathers round 

 the base of the beak, and the feathered orbits of the eye, were 

 white ; the crown of the head, sides of the face, and ear- 

 coverts also white, each feather strongly tipped with dark 

 brown ; the back of the neck and tippet brown, with paler 



