100 BRITISH AND EUROPEAN BIRDS. 



Resolved that amusement was good for the state? 

 The Aquiline Monarch^ 1 ) in council sedate, 



(') Order, Accipitres, (Linn.) Eagle, Hawk, Kite, 

 Buzzard, Falcon, &c. 



The term Eagle is applied to various birds which are ar- 

 ranged by Linnaeus under the genus denominated by him 

 Falco, of which he described only thirty-two species ; such, 

 however, has been the assiduity of subsequent research, that 

 above two hundred and thirty species are described in Di\ 

 Latham's last work. 



The following may be considered as the chief of this rapacious 

 tribe, the distinguishing characteristics of which are, a hooked 

 bill, the base covered with a cere, the head covered with close 

 set feathers, the tongue bifid. They are bold, and fly with 

 great speed when high in the air, but slowly in the lower re- 

 gions ; their sense of sight is exquisite ; their legs and feet are 

 scaly j the middle and outer toes connected ; they are not gre- 

 garious. They feed sometimes on putrid carcasses, but, more 

 commonly, attacking living animals, destroy and devour them. 

 They build their nests, (those of the Eagles, and some others of 

 the tribe, arc called eyries,) for the most part, in the clefts of 

 impending rocks ; some of the Hawks on trees. They are 

 scattered over the various parts of the globe: upwards of 

 twenty species are found in the interior or on the coasts of this 

 country. In many of the tribe the female is larger than the 

 male. Several of the genus are migratory. Indeed,, from their 

 power and rapidity of flight, they are enabled to visit most of 

 the regions of the globe. From the great changes in the colour 

 of the feathers of several of the genus during their progress to 

 maturity, considerable confusion exists among ornithologists in 

 the names of several of the species ; nor am I able to rectify the 

 numerous discordances which have thence arisen. 



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