BIRDS. *° 



This bird is, I believe, confined to the Galapagos Archipelago, where on all 

 the islands, it is excessively numerous. It inhabits, indifferently, either the dry 

 sterile region near the coast, which, perhaps, is its most general resort, or the 

 damp and wooded summits of the volcanic hills. This bird, in most of its habits 

 and disposition, resembles the Milvago leucurus, or the Falco Novce ZelandicB of older 

 authors. It is extremely tame, and frequents the neighbourhood of any building 

 inhabited by man. When a tortoise is killed even in the midst of the woods, these 

 birds immediately congregate in great numbers, and remain either seated on the 

 ground, or on the branches of the stunted trees, patiently waiting to devour the in- 

 testines, and to pick the carapace clean, after the meat has been cut away. 

 These birds will eat all kinds of offal thrown from the houses, and dead fish 

 and marine productions cast up by the sea. They are said to kill young doves, 

 and even chickens ; and are very destructive to the little tortoises, as soon as 

 they break through the shell. In these respects this bird shows its alliance 

 with the buzzards. Its flight is neither elegant nor swift. On the ground it 

 is able, like the 31. leucurus and Phalcobcenus montanus of D'Orbigny, to run 

 very quickly. This habit which, as before observed, is so anomalous in the 

 Falcons, manifests in a very striking manner the relation of this new genus 

 with the Polyborince. It is, also, a noisy bird, and utters many different cries, 

 one of which was so very like the shrill gentle scream of the 31. chimango, that 

 the officers of the "Beagle" generally called it either by this name, or from 

 its larger size by that of Carrancha — both names, however, plainly indicating 

 its close and evident relationship with the birds of that family. The craw is 

 feathered; and does not, I believe, protrude like that of the P. Brasiliensis 

 or 31. leucurus. It builds in trees, and the female was just beginning to lay in 

 October. The bird of which the full figure has been given, is a young female, 

 but of, at least, one year old. The old male-bird is of a uniform dusky plumage, 

 and is seen behind. The adult female resembles the young of the same sex, but 

 the breast is dark brown like that of the male. In precisely the same manner as 

 was remarked in the case of the 31. leucurus, these old females are present in 

 singularly few proportional numbers. One day at James' Island, out of thirty 

 birds, which I counted standing within a hundred yards of the tents, under which 

 we were bivouacked, there was not a single one with the dark brown breast. 

 From this circumstance I am led to conclude that the females of this species (as 

 with the 31. leucurus) acquire their full plumage late in life. 



