﻿BIRDS OF PREY. CYMINDIS. 



311 



assertion is not correct. Of course there is no such 

 thing as a " semipalmated tarsus;" but the toes of 

 Cymindis, so far from possessing this character, are 

 even destitute of that slight connecting membrane at 

 the base of the outer toe which exists in the typical 

 falcons, and in so many other rapacious genera. The 

 true characters of the group are to be found in its 

 excessively hooked bill, long wings, rounded tail, and 

 very short feet, the structure of which, although more 

 like to Polyborus, is yet so peculiar as at once to distin- 

 guish Cymindis, as a genus, from all others of the 

 family. In C. cuculo'ldes Sw. (fig. 104.) the tarsus is 



only a very little longer 

 than the hind toe*, which 

 is almost equal to the 

 outer toe in total length ; 

 the inner toe is slightly 

 longer than the hinder, 

 and the two lateral toes, 

 excluding their claws, 

 are of the same length ; 

 the middle toe is shorter than in any falconine bird we 

 have yet seen ; while all the claws, except the external 

 one, which is small, appear of the same size and breadth 

 when viewed on their inner side. Prolix as these de- 

 tails may be, they are rendered necessary, since no writer 

 has noticed them ; and it is highly important to show 

 that the genus before us has a construction of foot totally 

 unlike any other in the entire circle of the Falconidce. 

 The semiplumed tarsus of the species just mentioned 

 makes its legs appear still shorter; and this circum- 

 stance, with its grey and white barred plumage, gives 

 it so much the appearance of a large cuckoo, or of a 

 ceblepyris, that even a professed ornithologist, upon the 

 first glance, might easily mistake it for one of those 

 birds if its bill was concealed. Whatever uncertainty 



* To avoid repetition, the ornithologist will understand that when the 

 length of any particular toe is mentioned, its claw is included ; but that 

 wnen the toe only is mentioned, it will be so expressed. 



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