BIRDS. 
25 
This bird is, I believe, confined to the Galapagos Archipelago, where on all 
the islands, it is excessively numerous. It inhabits, indifferently, either the dry 
sterile region near the coast, which, perhaps, is its most general resort, or the 
damp and wooded summits of the volcanic hills. This bird, in most of its habits 
and disposition, resembles the Milvago leucurus, or the Falco Novce Zelandioe of older 
authors. It is extremely tame, and frequents the neighbourhood of any building 
inhabited by man. When a tortoise is killed even in the midst of the woods, these 
birds immediately congregate in great numbers, and remain either seated on the 
ground, or on the branches of the stunted trees, patiently waiting to devour the in- 
testines, and to pick the carapace clean, after the meat has been cut away. 
These birds will eat all kinds of offal thrown from the houses, and dead fish 
and marine productions cast up by the sea. They are said to kill young doves, 
and even chickens ; and are very destructive to the little tortoises, as soon as 
they break through the shell. In these respects this bird shows its alliance 
with the buzzards. Its flight is neither elegant nor swift. On the ground it 
is able, like the 31. leucurus and Phalcob Genus montanus of D’Orbigny, to run 
very quickly. This habit which, as before observed, is so anomalous in the 
Falcons, manifests in a very striking manner the relation of this new genus 
with the Polyborince. It is, also, a noisy bird, and utters many different cries, 
one of which was so very like the shrill gentle scream of the 31. chimango, that 
the officers of the “Beagle” generally called it either by this name, or from 
its larger size by that of Carrancha, — both names, however, plainly indicating 
its close and evident relationship with the birds of that family. The craw is 
feathered ; and does not, I believe, protrude like that of the P. Brasiliensis 
or M. leucurus. It builds in trees, and the female was just beginning to lay in 
October. The bird of which the full figure has been given, is a young female, 
but of, at least, one year old. The old male-bird is of a uniform dusky plumage, 
and is seen behind. The adult female resembles the young of the same sex, but 
the breast is dark brown like that of the male. In precisely the same manner as 
was remarked in the case of the 31. leucurus, these old females are present in 
singularly few proportional numbers. One day at James’ Island, out of thirty 
birds, which I counted standing within a hundred yards of the tents, under which 
we were bivouacked, there was not a single one with the dark brown breast. 
From this circumstance I am led to conclude that the females of this species (as 
with the M. leucurus) acquire their full plumage late in life. 
E 
