FALCON. 285 



232— SURINAM FALCON. 



Falco Sufflator, /nc?. Oni. 1. 37. i»i.i. 127. Gm. Lin.i. 27b. Daud.'u. 114, Shaw's 



Zoo I. vii. 155. 

 Surinam Falcon, Gen. Si/n. i. 84. Bancr. Guian. 155. 



WE learn from Linnaeus, that the cere is yellow; nostrils 

 furnished with a fleshy lobe between them ; the covering of the eyes 

 bony ; ^ body above brown, the feathers white at the base ; under 

 parts and tail spotted with brown, white, and luteous ; legs yellow. 



Inhabits Surinam ; when this bird is angry, or frightened, it is 

 said to blow up the head to the size of the body.f 



I observed one similar in the collection of Miss Blomefield. 

 Size of the Hen-Harrier ; above brown, mixed with ferruginous ; 

 forehead and throat palest ; a streak of brown from the base of the 

 bill to a little beyond the eyes, pointed behind ; under parts white, 

 streaked with brown, the breast tinged with rusty ; thighs buff- 

 colour ; quills spotted with rust, beneath dirty white, with obscure 

 narrow bars of brown. 



This last was brought from Cayenne. 



* Oculorum operculis OMe«i— probably meaning, that the opaque part of the cornea of 

 the eye is of a bony texture ; if so, it is by no means peculiar to this bird, for it is more or 

 less a hard substance in most of the genus, but remarkably so in the Owl tribe; in which, the 

 eye being large, the circumstance is very] conspicuous — on this head Klein in his Stem. Av. 

 1. 10. f. 1. a.2.b. may be consul ted— also Beseke Vog. Kurlands, t. 8. & 9. at the end of which 

 is a treatise on the subject. 



t Mentioned also by Dr. Bancroft, who says, the bird distends the head with air when 

 angry or terrified ; how this is occasioned we know not. As to the enlargement of the breast of 

 the Powter Pigeon, it arises from the crop being filled with air, yet I do not find that this part 

 has any thing different in structure from that of other pigeons. 



