BIRDS OP PREY. BUZZARDS. 
313 
confined to the wings and tail : the former are of most 
unusual extent, having the third quill the longest, the 
first and second being lobed, or emarginated, on their 
inner margin in precisely the same manner as those of 
the typical falcons ; while in Cymindin, and all the other 
genera excluded from the typical group, this lobe is 
situated at tlie base, instead of towards the point of the 
quills . the great powers of flight manifested by this 
structure are further increased by a very long and 
deeply forked tail. All these peculiarities, while they 
establish the affinity of Nauclerus to Cymindis, clearly 
point out the bird to be the fissirostral type of the 
milvine circle, and places it in immediate junction 
with the common fork-tailed kite of Europe. Tlie 
genus Elanus, which clearly belongs to this generic 
group, is only known to us from description and a hasty 
inspection ; we cannot, therefore, offer any opinion w’orth 
depending upon regarding its precise station ; it proba- 
bly, however, intervenes between the subgenera Cymin- 
dis and Nauclerus; while the very short toes of 
Vieillot’s genus Circcetus makes it not improbable that 
it is the grallatorial type. If our suspicions regarding 
the two last-named forms are correct, the subgenera 
Polyborus, Cymindis, Elanus, Nauclerus, and Circeetus 
wili then describe the milvine circle, and will fully 
exemplify tlie theory of representation : the analogies, 
indeed, of the first, second, and fourth are placed be- 
yond doubt ; so that, whatever modifications in the 
circle a more intimate knowledge of the group may 
occasion, we look upon these three as certain landmarks, 
by which the location of all other forms of the milvine 
group wiU be regulated. 
(252.) We have now arrived at the Buzzards, the 
last division of the.falconine family, and that which, by 
the series we have chosen, brings us back again to the 
genuine or typical falcons. If the vernacular name of 
this group was taken from those birds which in our 
opinion are typical of it, we might denominate them 
the Harriers, inasmuch as it is Circus, and not Buteo, 
