unravel the tangled web of synonymy, and to dwell on the description of external characters. In this part of our work, it behoves us to generalize our views as much as possible, and to reject everything which has no bearing on the philosophy of the subject. In our former supplementary parts we have certainly entered more into the kind of details to which we now allude; but they were better authenticated, and more important in themselves than most of the same sort that can be offered in the department of Ornithology.

In fact, the conflicting accounts of naturalists in this department of Zoology are almost beyond belief. What with errors of many and the corrections of more, they have made" confusion worse confounded." An immensity of labour and research is still requisite to rectify the very defective nomenclature of the eagles and of the birds of prey in general. How, indeed, considering the different appearances according to age and sex, can we presume to pronounce affirmatively on foreign species, when it is recollected how long a period elapsed before the identity of the osprey and pygargus was ascertained, birds constantly found in Europe? A complete and judicious monograph of these birds would be of the highest utility to the science, but it would require a continued series of observations for many years, a thing impossible with regard to beings which live at such a distance from our dwellings, and whose spoils exhibit only variable signs, more calculated for the multiplication than the detection of errors. To form an idea of the extreme difficulty of such a task, it is sufficient to consult the Observationes Zoologica of the profound Hermann, who, notwithstanding his very careful and painful description of numerous individuals, has left us little but his own personal uncertainties and doubts upon the subject.

The figure is from a specimen in the Museum at Edinburgh. It seems likely to be the male of Daudin's Falco destructor. The figure of the Brazilian Kite, Pandion Caracara? ap

pears to be the Caracara of Jacquin. The specimen was shot at Curaçoa, and was drawn by Major Hamilton Smith before its death; it appeared to be a male bird. The female is larger, and less elegantly marked.

Prince Maximilian's Crested Hawk, Falco? is from a drawing also by the Major of a beautiful specimen in the valuable collection of Prince Maximilian, belonging to the tribe of crested short-winged birds of prey. It is about the size of a Goshawk.

The Urubitinga is from the same collection. The specimen differs from the Baron's short description of this species in the intensity of the colour, which is a dark brown.

We shall now take a rapid survey of the HAWKS, Kites, and BUZZARDS. There are two sections of the HAWKS. The HAWKS proper and the GOSHAWKS. The denomination of accipiter which has been applied to the whole order of raptorial birds, is the original Latin term for a hawk. But in consequence of this application of it, naturalists have reserved the term nisus for the hawks, and astur for the goshawks, whose habits are similar, and whose external differences are but trifling. M. Savigny has formed a new genus comprehending the hawks and goshawks, to which he has given the name of Dadalion. And M. Vieillot has called these birds Sparvius.

The generic characters of this subdivision of Accipitres we shall briefly recapitulate, because from their structural importance they should be impressed on the mind of the student. The characters common to both sections are, a beak greatly inclined from the base, and compressed laterally; the upper mandible greatly crooked, with a very marked tooth; the lower shorter, and obtuse; the cere smooth: the nostrils a little oval; the commissure, or division of the mouth, extending as far as below the eyes; the tongue oblong, thick, and sloped; the tarsi reticulated, principally on the sides, with a rank of lozenges in front; the four toes long, but considerably exceeded by the intermediate one; the talons crooked and acerated; that of the