285 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BIRDS OF AFRICA. 



TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF LE VAILLANT. 



THE SHORT-TAILED EAGLE. 



Le Bateleur, Le Vaillant, Ois. d'Afrique, i., p. 31, Plates 7 and 8 ; Falco 

 ecaudatus, Latham, Index Orn. Sup., p. iv. ; Daudin, Orn. ii. 54 ; Shaw, Gen. 

 Zool. vii. 98 ; Short-tailed Falcon, Latham, Gen. Synops. Sup. ii. 21 ; Gen. 

 Hist. i. 171. 



Among all the birds of prey at present known, there is not one that 

 can be compared, or that seems related, to the short-tailed eagle. Its 

 singularly short tail at once particularly distinguishes and characterises 

 it, scarcely extending beyond the tail coverts, which conceal more than 

 half of it. Its whole length, indeed, does not exceed six inches, con- 

 trasting badly with its long wings, whose extent appears more on 

 account of the shortness of the tail, and both together rendering its 

 flight peculiar. When I saw this bird fly, for the first time, I was of 

 opinion that it had lost its tail by accident, a supposition strengthened 

 by the singularity of its mode of flight — for the tails of birds of prey, 

 acting as a rudder, serve to give them much agility and gracefulness in 

 the air. My subsequent observations, however, proved that the short tail 



VOL. I. — NO. VII. (JULY, 1833.) X 



