Genus— CERCHNEIS. 
Cerchneis Boie, Isis 1826, col. 970 (976) 
Aegypius Kaup, Skizz. Entwick.-Gesch. Nat. Syst., 
p. 29, 1829 
(Not of Savigny 1809.) 
Falcula Hodgson, Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, Vol. VI., 
p. 365, 1837, 1838 .. 
Tinnunculus Gray, List Genera Birds, 1840, p. 3 
(Not of Vieillot 1809.) 
Poecilornis Kaup, Classif. Saugeth. Vogel, p. 108, 1844 
Tichornis Kaup, Classif. Saugeth. Vogel, p. 108, 1844 . . 
Type C. rupicola. 
Type C. tinnunculus. 
Type G. tinnunculus. 
Type C. tinnunculus. 
Type C. sparverius. 
Type C. naumanni. 
Small Falconine birds with small bills, long wings, long tails, long legs and 
short toes. 
The bill is typically Falconine, very small with small cere almost hidden : 
the edges of the upper mandible toothed. The wings are long, with a 
peculiar wing formula, for though the first primary is long, it is shorter 
than the fourth ; the second and third are much longer, the second slightly 
the longest. 
The tail is long and rounded, more than half the length of the wing, as 
nearly as can be, two-thirds. 
The legs are long and thin ; the tarsus is covered, as usual, with 
reticulate scales. The middle toe is not unusually lengthened and is about 
two-thirds the length of the tarsus. 
Why this genus should have been submerged in Falco by authorities 
such as Hartert, who simultaneously recognised leracidea, I am unable to 
understand. I see more difference between Cerchneis and Falco than between 
Falco and leracidea. Other writers, such as Ogilvie-Grant, have accepted 
the length of the middle toe as being a good character to separate generically 
Accipiter and Astur, concluding these are “natural genera,” and then have 
lumped Falco and Cerchneis where exactly similar differential features can be 
observed, with this di^erencei in the two latter genera a different wing formula 
and colour pattern have been evolved, whereas the former pair have not 
succeeded to this extent in separating themselves. 
VOL. V. 
281 
