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CHAPTER VIII. 



RAPTORES, OR BIRDS OF PREY. 



The Raptores enjoy a greater amount of public notoriety than almost 

 any other birds, although they are of little or no service to us, and 

 possess infinitely fewer claims on our interest than a multitude of 

 other winged creatures. The audacity and courage by which several 

 species are distinguished, the marvellous stories to which their exploits 

 have given rise, and the superstitious terror caused by their appear- 

 ance may help to explain the reason of this notoriety. Poets and 

 novel-writers, in order to characterise their heroes, often inspire 

 them with the qualities or defects of some of the rapacious birds. 

 They have made the eagle a type of nobility, strength, and valour ; 

 the vulture the incarnation of cowardice and unclean gluttony. The 

 owl, with its staring aspect and noiseless flight, has been made a bird 

 of ill omen ; its doleful hoot echoing through the shades of night, 

 over the house of sickness, being regarded as an infallible prediction 

 of death. These superstitions have had considerable influence 

 upon popular imagination, and have thus passed into habitual use in 

 conversation. 



The Rapacious order is characterised by a very strong, hooked, 

 and sharp-edged bill, which is furnished at its base with a membrane 

 called the cere — it is generally of a yellow colour, and upon it the 

 nostrils open ; strong legs, covered with feathers ; four toes, three in 

 front and one behind, which are usually very flexible, and provided 

 with crooked and retractile talons, often possessed of great strength. 

 Their powers of vision are very great, and they are marvellously 

 organised for flight, their long and vigorous wings enabling them to 

 hover in the highest regions of the air, and to travel over immense 

 distances in an incredibly short space of time. 



Their generic name sufficiently indicates that they live by plunder 

 and blood-shedding. They correspond, in the class of birds, with the 

 carnivora among mammalia. Like them, they live on animals, either 



