the Hijiory of ANIMALS. 
and is elegantly variegated with zones, or broad tranfverfe lines of black and a brown- 
ifh- white; there are fometimes fourteen of thefe in the whole tail. 
The bread and belly, or indeed the whole under part of the bird, from the throat 
to the infertion of the tail, is of a pale whitifh-brown, with a flight tinge of the fer- 
rugineous reddifh, and is flightly variegated with fpots of a blackilh-brown ; thefe are 
not very numerous, and they ftand in a longitudinal, not a tranfverfe, direction, feem- 
ing to follow the courfe of the feathers. 
The legs are lefs robud than in mod of the birds of prey ; they are long, flender, 
and of a yellow colour: the toes alfo are long and flender, and the claws are long, 
black, and fharp. 
The male in this fpecies, as in all the other birds of prey, is condderably fmaller 
than the female, and it is alfo didinguifhed by fome blue feathers on the rump, which 
are wanting in the female: the back of this bird lofes all it’s variegations by age, and 
becomes folely of a dufky bluifh colour ; this is an incident that happens more or lefs 
to all the Falco kinds, as they grow old, but it is in none of them fo confpicuous 
as in this little fpecies. 
ft . 
Though this is one of the fmalieA of the birds of prey; it is as bold as any of 
the larger: it will attack almod any thing, but the partridge is it’s favourite prey » it 
will fly at a whole covey of thefe, and deflroy quicker than any other hawk. 
It is a native of England; it builds with us in woods, and fometimes in hedges. 
All the writers on birds have defcribed it; Aidrovand, and after him mod of the mo¬ 
dern writers, call it fEfalon and fEfalus, fuppodng, though with no great certainty, 
that it was the fEfalon of the old Romans. 
Falco pedibus flavis, dorfo fufco, pe&ore alho lineolts nigris 
variegato. < 36 $-*- 
the yellow-legged Falco , with a brown back , and a white 
variegated breajl. 
This is a large and a very beautiful bird ; it is bigger than the common buzzard, 
and is very like it in fhape : the head is fmall and flatted ; the beak is fhort, but very 
broad at the bafe, and extreamly hooked; the point of the upper chap hanging over 
the lower, and very fharp : the eyes are extreamly fharp and piercing, and the noArils 
are round ifh. 
> 
The upper part of the head and neck, the back, and, in fhort, the whole upper 
part of the body, is of a deep dufky brown, not unlike that of the buzzard; but the 
bread and belly are very beautiful: they are of a fnow-white, and are elegantly varie¬ 
gated with narrow, oblong, and undulated lines of black, difpofed in a regular and 
a very beautiful manner. 
The legs are very robud, moderately long and yellow : the toes are long, and the 
claws are very long, black, and fliarp : the beak is of a blackifh colour, and the 
membrane that covers it at the bafe is of a yellowifh-green : the wings are fhort; 
they do not reach, when clofed, to more than half the length of the tail : this is a 
Angularity which didinguifhes the Gos-hawk, at firA fight, from all the other fpecies. 
The tail is long; it is of a greyifh-brown colour, and is variegated with three ob- 
fcure zones, or tranfverfe dudts, placed at a great didance from one another. 
This is a very bold bird; it feeds on pheafants and partridges, but it will fly at 
any thing: the heron makes admirable diverflon for the hawkers, under an attack 
from this bird: it may alfo be taught to attack wild geefe and hares. The French 
cell this fpecies Antour, and their Latin writers, AAur; Aidrovand, however, declares 
