BIRDS. 



" scarlet and cochineal red,"* and the iris dark-coloured. D'Orbigny describes 

 the iris as being bright scarlet: whilst Azara says it is " jaune leger." Is this 

 difference owing to the sex and age, as certainly is the case with the condors ? 

 As a considerable degree of confusion has prevailed in the synonyms of this 

 and the foregoing species, caused apparently by a doubt to which of them 

 Molina applied the name of Jote, I would wish to call attention to the fact, that 

 at the present time the C, aura in Chile goes by the name of Jote. Moreover, 

 I think Molina's description by itself might have decided the question ; he says, 

 the head of the Vultur jota is naked, and covered only with a wrinkled and 

 reddish (roxiza) skin. 



Family— FALCONIDiE. 



Sub-Fam. POLYBORIN^, Swains. 

 (Caracaridee, D'Orbigny.) 



Polyborus Brasiliensis. Swains. 



Polyborus vulgaris, Vieillot. 



Falco Brasiliensis Auctorum ; Caracara of Azara ; Tharu of Molina ; and Carrancha of the inhabitants of 

 La Plata. 



This is one of the commonest birds in South America, and has a wide geographi- 

 cal range. It is found in Mexico and in the West Indies. It is also, according 

 to M. Audubon, an occasional visitant to the Floridas ; it takes its name from 

 Brazil, but is no where so common as on the grassy savannahs of La Plata. 

 It generally follows man, but is sometimes found even on the most desert plains 

 of Patagonia : in the northern part of that region, numbers constantly attended 

 the line of road between the Rio Negro and the Colorado, to devour the carcasses 

 of the animals which chanced to perish from fatigue. Although abundant on the 

 open plains of this eastern portion of the continent, and likewise on the rocky 

 and barren shores of the Pacific, nevertheless it inhabits the borders of the damp and 

 impervious forests of Tierra del Fuego and of the broken coast of West Patagonia, 

 even as far south as Cape Horn. The Carranchas (as the Polyborus Brasiliensis 

 is called in La Plata) together with the P. chimango\, attend in great numbers 

 the estancias and slaughtering houses in the neighbourhood of the Plata. If an 



* In this work, whenever the particular name of any colour is given, or it is placed within commas, it 

 implies, that it is taken from comparison with Patrick Syme's edition of Werner s Nomenclature of Colours, 

 t Mileago Chimango of this work. 



C 



