342 ' The Hiftory of ANIMALS. 
The legs are long, and very robuft ; the claws long, lharp, and black : the legs 
and feet are yellow, and the toes are bony ; the outer toe in this, as well as in fome 
other fpecies, is connected by a membrane to the next, almoft half way it’s length. 
This fpecies is very frequent with us in woods, and fometimes about ruined build¬ 
ings. It is a very bold feeder, feizing upon almoft any thing of the feathered kind. 
It lays five moderately large eggs; they are white, but ornamented, toward the obtufe 
end, with a kind of crown, formed of fmall fpots of a blood-red colour : all the 
writers on birds have defcribed this fpecies. Gefner calls it Falco Fingillarius• Aldro- 
vand, Accipiter Fringillarius; and Willughby, Accipiter Fringillarius five recentiorum 
Nifus et Sparverius. Some of the writers miftaking the male and female of this kind 
as diftindt fpecies, Aldrovand calls the male Mofchetus ; and Gefner, Accipiter minor 
mas quern vulgo Mifum live Sparverium appellant. 
Falco cera flava> dorfo f 'errugineo> cauda rujfo et nigro 
variegata. 
The Falco, with a brown back, and a variegated black 
and brown tail. 
)e $ett= 
tjarn'er. 
This is a confiderably large fpecies j it is equal to a well-grown pullet in lize : the 
head is fmall, and fomewhat flatted at the top: the beak is large, and very robuft ; it 
is broad and thick at the bafe, very hooked, and extreamly fharp at the point: the 
bafe of it is covered with a thick, yellow membrane, in which are lituated the nof- 
trils, and toward the angles of it, above the noftrils, there are a kind of black hairs, 
refembling whifkers 5 thefe are very rigid and hard, and they all turn forwards: from 
the hinder part of the head there runs a circle of fomewhat eredt feathers round the 
ears, and the bafe of the back; the middle part of thefe feathers is of a reddilh- 
brown, and their edges are variegated with a paler brown and whitifh. This circle of 
feathers is a very lingular thing, and gives an appearance of a kind of crown to the 
head of the bird; from this circle of feathers there runs a naked Ikin, which fur- 
rounds the region of the ears: the back is of a dulky, ferrugineous colour; the edges 
of the feathers which cover the neck are of a reddilh tinge; thofe on the top of the 
head are of a more limple brown, and thofe on the back part are white at the bot¬ 
tom : there is a white fpot under the eyes, and the breaft and belly are of a whitifh 
colour/ with fome tinge of brown, and are variegated with long and narrow lines of 
a pale brown, which run down the middles of the feveral feathers. 
The middle of the throat is brown, or of a dulky, ferrugineous tinge; the edges 
of the feathers, however, have all a reddilh call: there are fome white feathers on the 
rump, which are all of them variegated toward their middle with a number of round, 
ferrugineous fpots. 
The wings have each twenty-four long feathers; the exterior verge of thefe is of 
the fame colour with the feathers on the back, but their inner part is variegated with 
tranfverfe black and white lines; in the larger of thefe feathers, the white lines are 
largeft ; in the more anterior ones, the black are the broadeft and moft confpicuous : 
the edges of the innermoft are wholly brown ; there is fome white on thofe that are 
next them, but in thefe it degenerates by degrees into brown, till there is no trace of 
it to be feen : the extremities of the exterior feathers of the fecond order are white, 
and thofe of the inner feries are reddilh ; the reft of the feathers are of the fame co¬ 
lour with thofe of the back of the bird. 
* 
The tail is about eight inches long, and is compofed of twelve feathers; the ex¬ 
tremities of thefe are of a brownifh or ferrugineous colour, with fome tinge of red in 
it, and all the reft of their length they are variegated with tranfverfe lines of this red- 
difti-brown and black ; but the black lines are much larger than the others, and in 
the two middle the hrovvn wholly dif^ijDjpCcirSa 
The 
