﻿BIRDS OF PREY. FALCONS. 289 



and many others of lesser note, deterred us, some years 

 ago, from attempting any classification of the Falconidce, 

 when treating of the North American species discovered 

 on the Arctic expeditions : rather choosing to prosecute 

 further inquiries, and collect additional materials by slow- 

 degrees, than to adopt a circular arrangement of the 

 family; which arrangement, although we may know it to 

 be erroneous, we may be unable to rectify in a satisfactory 

 manner. With this decision, which was then thought 

 to be somewhat fastidious, we have now reason to be 

 satisfied. In the following distribution of the family, 

 we trust to have placed the primary types upon that 

 sure basis which reposes both upon affinity and analogy ; 

 so that some advance, at least, will be made towards a 

 more natural disposition of the family, and, by indi- 

 cating what appears to us the true station of some of the 

 minor groups, a clue will be furnished by which the 

 validity of the genera and subgenera not here adopted 

 may be more correctly ascertained. 



(239.) The three primary divisions of the Fal- 

 conid/e are characterised by the following peculiarities. 

 The first contains the true falcons, having a deep and 

 sharply angulated tooth (which is often divided into 

 two) near the tip of the upper mandible : these compose 

 the restricted genus Falco. The second is composed 

 of the hawks, wherein the tooth just mentioned is not 

 apparent, or rather it assumes a form of a rounded 

 projecting lobe, or festoon, towards the middle of the 

 margin : the shape of the bill, however, in other re- 

 spects, is the same ; that is to say, it is short, high, and 

 curved from the base : the wings are also more rounded 

 than those of the true falcons, but both groups agree in 

 having the tarsus fully developed. To these birds we 

 retain the generic name of Accipiter, originally given 

 exclusively to them by our great countryman, WiL 

 lughby. fThe third, which is the aberrant division, is 

 characterised, as a whole, rather by negative than positive 

 characters. The bill is weaker, less curved, and more 

 straight at its base ; it is never toothed, and seldom 

 u 



