﻿BIRDS OF PREY. BUZZARDS. 313 



confined to the wings and tail : the former are of most 

 unusual extent, having the third quill the longest, the 

 first and second being lobed, or emarginated, on their 

 inner margin in precisely the same manner as those of 

 the typical falcons ; while in Cymindis, and all the other 

 genera excluded from the typical group, this lobe is 

 situated at the base, instead of towards the point of the 

 quills . the great powers of flight manifested by this 

 structure are further increased by a very long and 

 deeply forked tail. All these peculiarities, while they 

 establish the affinity of Nauclerus to Cymindis, clearly 

 point out the bird to be the fissirostral type of the 

 mil vine circle, and places it in immediate junction 

 with the common fork-tailed kite of Europe. The 

 genus Elanus, which clearly belongs to this generic 

 group, is only known to us from description and a hasty 

 inspection ; we cannot, therefore, offer any opinion worth 

 depending upon regarding its precise station : it proba- 

 bly, however, intervenes between the subgenera Cyrnin- 

 dis and Nauclerus; while the very short toes of 

 Vieillot's genus Circcetus makes it not improbable that 

 it is the grallatorial type. If our suspicions regarding 

 the two last-named forms are correct, the subgenera 

 Polyborus, Cymindis, Elanus, Nauclerus, and Circcetus 

 will then describe the milvine circle, and will fully 

 exemplify the theory of representation : the analogies, 

 indeed, of the first, second, and fourth are placed be- 

 yond doubt ; so that, whatever modifications in the 

 circle a more intimate knowledge of the group may 

 occasion, we look upon these three as certain landmarks, 

 by which the location of all other forms of the milvine 

 group will be regulated. 



(252.) We have now arrived at the Buzzards, the 

 last division of the falconine family, and that which, by 

 the series we have chosen, brings us back again to the 

 genuine or typical falcons. If the vernacular name of 

 this group was taken from those birds which in our 

 opinion are typical of it, we might denominate them 

 the Harriers, inasmuch as it is Circus, and not Buteo, 



