The Hijlory 0 /" ANIMALS. 531 
ing fuch prey, having neither webbed feet, nor a long neck or legs ; that it does catch 
them, however, is evident, from it's domach being always found loaded with the 
bones of them. This I found in one, which I killed, laft fummer, in an ofier holt 
near Peterborough j and all the authors who have defcribed it, mention the fame 
circumftance. 
Gefner calls it Cyanopoda and Falco cui pedes casrulei. Aldrovand ranks it, as be¬ 
fore obferved, among the eagles, and defcribes it, twice over, under the names of Ha- 
liretus and Morphnos. Willughby calls it Balbufardus, a Grange name formed from 
the Englifh one ; and Ray calls it Balbufardus Anglorum. 
Falco cera flava, reSlricibus albis y verfus apices nigris . 
The Falco , with a yellow cera y and with the tail-fea¬ 
thers white y and black at the end . 
This is a very large bird ; it at lead equals a peacock in fize, and it's weight is about 
eight or nine pounds: it’s wings are very large, and, when fully extended, mea- 
fure, from tip to tip, very near three times the length of the whole body : the head 
is not very large, in proportion to the body : the beak is fhort, but it is very ro- 
bud and hooked ; and the bent part of the upper mandible reaches a finger’s breadth 
beyond the lower; the whole beak is of a deep yellowidi colour, and this extream part 
is nearly black : the cera, or membrane covering the bafe of the beak, is yellow, and 
the nodrils are very confpicuous in it; they are oblique, and are near half an inch 
long : the tongue is broad, flefhy, and black toward the extremity, and the palate is 
hollowed to receive it: the eyes are very large, but they do not dand prominent ; they 
are rather a little funk in, under the fwelling of the part of the head above them : 
their iris is hazel, or in fome of a reddifh yellow, or deep orange colour: the legs are 
very long and robud, and the feet are drong, and have a callous tubercle on the un¬ 
der part; they are yellow; the claws are black, and are very large 3 the hinder one 
is not lefs than an inch in length, and is very fharp. 
The head is white ; the feathers are long and narrow, and their fcapi are blackifh : 
in the fpace between the eyes and the nodrils there are no feathers, but there are in 
their place a kind of fetae, with the bafes lanuginous: the beginning of the neck is of 
a fomewhat reddifh-brown, and the neck is all the way down covered with oblong 
and narrow feathers: the whole body is covered with feathers of a dufky, ferrugine- 
ous colour, but the rump is black, and the tail is in part white : it confids of twelve 
feathers, and they are all of them white from the top to half way of their length, and 
black in the other half; the long wing-feathers are twenty-feven in number, and the 
third and fourth of them are longer than the others; the wings, when clofed, do not 
reach quite to the extremity of the tail: the barrels of the large quills are fhort, but 
they are very firm and eladic, and make excellent writing-pens; thefe large feathers 
are all black, and the edges of fome of the fmaller covering feathers of the wings are 
grey.. # \\ 
The liver in this bird is very large, and the gall-bladder is in proportion : the teHi¬ 
des in the males are large and oblong and the intedines are dender, but very long, 
and convoluted : the throat is extreamly wide, but the domach is but fmall: the fe¬ 
male, in this fpecies, is fomewhat paler-coloured than the male; and the belly, in 
both fexes, is paler than the back,. 
It is frequent in Italy, and many of the warmer parts of Europe, but has not been 
met with in England, and but rarely in Germany. It lives in foreds, and is a very 
bold feeder; hares, and other of the fmaller quadrupeds, are it’s ufual food, but it 
will feize on almod any thing. Gefner calls it Pygargus ; Ray alfo gives it the fame 
name ; Willughby calls it Pygargus five Albicilla, quibufdam Hinnularia. The name 
Pygargus has, however, been ufed by fome of the ornithologids in a confufed man¬ 
ner, and we are not always to underdand this fpecies by it in their writings. Aldro- 
vand’s Pygargus is the fame with our fecond fpecies; the brown Eagle, and the Pygar¬ 
gus prior of Bellonius, is no other than the male of that fpecies of hawk to bedefcri- 
bed hereafter, and which we call the Hen-Harrow. 
Falco 
