BIRDS OF PREY. CYMINDIS. 3H 
assertion is not correct. Of course there is no such 
thing as a “ semipalmated tarsus;” but the toes of 
Cyniindis, so far from possessing this character, are 
even destitute of that slight connecting membrane at 
the base of the outer toe which exists in the typical 
falcons, and in so many other rapacious genera. The 
true characters of the group are to he found in its 
excessively hooked bill, long wings, rounded tail, and 
very short feet, the structure of which, although more 
like to Polyborus, is yet so peculiar as at once to distin- 
guish Cymindis, as a genus, from all others of the 
family. In C. cueulo'ides Sw. (/g. 104.) the tarsus is 
only a very little longer 
than the hind toe*, which 
is almost equal to the 
outer toe in total length ; 
the inner toe is slightly 
longer than the hinder, 
and the two lateral toes, 
excluding their claws, 
are of the same length ; 
the middle toe is shorter than in any falconine bird we 
have yet seen ; while all the claws, except the e.\ternal 
one, which is small, appear of the same size and breadth 
when viewed on their inner side. Prolix as these de- 
tails may be, they are rendered necessary, since no writer 
has noticed them ; and it is highly important to show 
that the genus before us has a construction of foot totally 
unlike any other in the entire circle of the Falconidaf. 
The semiplumed tarsus of the species just mentioned 
makes its legs appear still shorter ; and this circum- 
stance, with its grey and white barred plumage, gives 
it so much the appearance of a large cuckoo, or of a 
neblepyris, that even a professed ornithologist, upon the 
first glance, might easily mistake it for one of those 
birds if its bill was concealed. Whatever uncertainty 
* To avoid repetition, the ornithologist will understand that when the 
length of any particular toe ia mentioned, its claw is included ; but that 
when the toe only is mentioned, it will he so expressed. 
X 4 
