OF CIRCiEETUS. 



17 



11. 



Order Raptores. Family Falconidoe. Stirps Aquilina. Genus 

 Circseetus? Species new ? 



This compact, powerful, and well-proportioned bird, though con- 

 siderably less than the true Eagle, just described, is yet more nearly 

 akin in size (as in other respects,) to the aquiline stirps of the family 

 of the Falconidoe, than to any other stirps of that family. 



Having only the very slightest acquaintance with its manners, I am 

 doubtful amid its slightly-marked characteristics as to its proper genus. 

 But I shall endeavour to give so accurate a description of it as to leave 

 no room for doubt in the minds of persons more versant with Zoology 

 than myself. 



In Shaw, vol, VII. p. 157, pi. 22, a bird called Falco Bacha, is des- 

 cribed and figured. The bird now before us bears a marvellous resem- 

 blance to that bird in the colors of its plumage, in the shape and size of 

 its crest, and even in its general figure and proportions. But as our bird 

 is vastly larger than the Bacha and as that bird is ranged in Shaw's 

 Xlllth vol. under the genus Cymindis, scarcely any of the characters 

 of which genus suit our bird, I have no' doubt it must be distinct from the 

 Bacha, and not finding it any where in Shaw's great work, I venture to 

 describe it as what is probably new. The bill is as long as the head, 

 scarcely cleft beyond the fore angle of the eye, and of less than moderate 

 width at the gape. Its lateral compression is considerable, so that the 

 ridge of the bill is acutely rounded and the sides of it have hardly any 



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