﻿EXTERNAL ANATOMY. WING FEATHERS. 89 



to be less powerful than that of the typical falcons ; for 

 their three first quills are gradually shortened, w T hereas 



the (C noble " race has the first quill feather nearly as 

 long as any of the others. In the owls, the situation 

 of the notch varies ; for in some it is near the end, in 

 others, towards the middle of the quills. This struc- 

 ture, the precise use of which it is difficult to explain, 

 although universal among the rapacious birds, is only 

 extended, out of their circle, to the typical tyrant 

 shrikes ; and which represent the Raptor es in their 

 own particular family group. A modification of this 

 sinuous margin of the inner, is frequently found on 

 that of the outer, web, not only in the rapacious birds, 

 but in many others. It is particularly strong in the 

 genus Aster; for the sparrow-hawk has the terminal 

 half of the outer web of the primaries only half as broad 

 as the remaining portion ; but in Falco Sparverius* , 

 and the genuine falcons, the second quill only has a 

 slight external emargination towards the middle. Many 

 of the parrots, crows, and other birds have the exterior 

 much broader at the base than it is towards the tip, 

 but then the change in the breadth is gradual, and in 

 no instance that we are acquainted with, is it suffi- 

 ciently sudden to be termed emarginate, 



(82.) Rounded wings are always short ; and there 

 is so little difference, either in point of length or shape, 

 between the last six or seven primaries and the second- 

 aries, that the difference of the two series can hardly be 

 distinguished. The tertials, also, are nearly of the same 

 dimensions ; so that when the wing is fully expanded, 



* North. Zool. vol. ii. pL 24. 



