FALCO SEMITORQUATUS. 
thirds of the tail ; second quill feather longest ; first and third nearly equal, 
and rather shorter than the second ; the extremity of the tail slightly rounded. 
DIMENSIONS. 
Inches. Lines. 
Length from the tip of the bill to the 
end of the tail 7 0 
of the hill from the angle of the 
mouth 0 9 
of the wings when folded 4 S 
of the tail 3 0 
Inches. Lines. 
Length of the tarsus 1 1 
Length of middle toe 0 9 
Length of hinder toe 0 4| 
In the female, the scapulars and the hack are deep chesnut brown ; in 
other respects the colours are similar to those of the male. In point of 
size there is a little difference, the female being nearly eight inches and a half 
in length. 
Only three specimens of this elegant little Falcon were procured by the expedition party, and 
those nearly in the same spot, among some large mimosa trees a little to the eastward of Old 
Latakoo. None of them were ever observed soaring like other falcons, and the few individuals 
that were seen were either perched upon the lowermost branches of the trees, or in the act of 
flying from one tree to another. Considering that this bird was never afterwards procured or 
even seen more to the eastward, it is probable that the proper habitat of the species will be 
found in the opposite direction, which I am the more inclined to believe, as one of our party 
declared he had seen it upon the borders of the Kalahari desert during an excursion we made 
to the westward of New Latakoo. In the stomachs of two were found the remains of small 
birds, and in the third, portions of a lizard, and different parts of coleopterous insects. 
If we are to admit Le Faucon a calotte noir of Levaillant, Ois. d’Afrique, pi. 29, (Falco 
tibialis, Daud.) to be a native of South Africa, we have now eight species of true Falcons 
inhabiting that part of the globe ; viz. 
Falco rupicolus, Daud. Falco tibialis, Daud. 
rupicoloides, Smith. Chicqucra, Le Valliant. 
biarmicus, Temm. Subbuteo, Lin. 
peregrinus, Lin. semitorquatus, Smith. 
The four species in the first column occur in almost every district of the country which has yet 
been explored; the fifth species, if it has a place in South Africa, must be very confined in its range, 
as I have never either met it myself, nor seen it in collections made by others. The sixth species 
was for the first time discovered during the movements of the expedition between the principal 
branches of the Orange river, and it was not until that discovery I could persuade myself 
that Levaillant had correctly ranked it as an African bird. The seventh is rarely procured, and 
I have never seen specimens at any great distance from Cape Town. The eighth probably 
never reaches the latitude of the colony. 
