All the Birds of Prey feed on the flesh of living or recently killed animals. They have a prompt, powerful, and rapid flight. They are mono gamous ; the female exceeds the male in size. They nidificate in lofty situations and rarely lay more than four eggs : the young are ex cluded in a blind and feeble state.
The Birds of Prey are either diurnal or noc turnal.
The Diurnal Raptores have their eyes di rected laterally, and are divided into the fol lowing families—I Hawks; Vulturidee, Vultures ; and Gypogeranidte, which includes the Secretary vulture. In the first two divisions the characters of the order are most strongly marked ; in the third the legs deviate from the ordinal character and are remarkably elongated, adapting it to an inferior kind of prey, viz. noxious reptiles, serpents, &c.
The Nocturnal .Raptores have the eyes directed forwards, and include the Strigidee or owl-tribe.
Order II. INSESSORES.
Legs slender, short, with three toes before and one behind, the two external toes united by a very short membrane.* .
The Perchers form by far the most nume rous order of birds, but are the least easily recognizable by distinctive characters common to the whole group. Their feet, being more especially adapted to the delicate labours of nidification, have neither the webbed struc ture of those of the Swimmers, nor the robust strength and destructive talons which characterise the feet of the Bird of Rapine, nor yet the extended toes which enable the Wader to walk safely over marshy soils- and tread lightly on the float ing leaves of aquatic plants; but the toes are slender, flexible, and moderately elongated with long, pointed and slightly curved claws.
( Fig.114.) The perchers in general have the females smaller and less brilliant in their plumage than the males; they always live in pairs, build in trees, and display the greatest art in the con struction of their nests. The young are ex cluded in a blind and naked state, and wholly dependent for subsistence during a certain period on parental care. The brain arrives in this order at its greatest proportional size ; the organ of voice here attains its utmost com plexity, and all the characteristics of the bird, as power of flight, melody of voice, and beauty of plumage are enjoyed in the highest perfection by one or other of the groups of this extensive and varied order.
The beak of the Insessores varies in form according to the nature of their food, which may be small or young birds, carrion, insects, fruit, seeds, vegetable juices, or of a mixed kind. The modifications of the rostrum have therefore afforded convenient characters for the tribes or subdivisions of the order ; these are termed, 1, Dentirostres ; 2, Coniros tres; 3, Tenuirostres ; 4, Fissirostres.
The Dentirostres, (fig.115) characterized by their insect food, and the notch near the extremity of the upper man dible, include the families termed Laniade or Shrikes ; Merulidee, Thrushes ; Rostrum of a Shrike at/re, Warblers ; Piprid,r, Tits; and illuscica pidce, Fly-catchers.
The Conirostres (fig. 116) include the two orders of M.Temminck, termed Omnivores and Granivores ; and are characterized by a strong and conical beak, the margin of which is gene rally entire; the greater part are omnivorous, the rest granivorous; these latter are the Hard billed Birds of Ray. The families of the tribe are the following : Sturnidee, Starlings ; OW videe, Crows; Buceridee, hornbills; Loxiadee, Cross-bills ; Fringillidee, Finches, Larks.
The Tenuirostres (fig. 117) or suctorial birds form, Mr.Vigors observes, " the most interesting group, per haps, of the animal world. Deriving their subsistence for the most part from the nectar of flowers,* we never fail to associate them in idea with that more beautiful and perfect part of the vegetable creation, with which in their delicacy and fragility of form, their variety and brilliancy of hues, not less than by their extracting their nourishment from vegetable juices, they appear to have so many relations. As the tribe is confined exclusively to the torrid zone and southern hemisphere, the naturalists of our northern latitudes have little opportunity of observing their manners or of inspecting their internal construction." -f This distinguished ornithologist proposes to divide the Tenuirostres into the following families : Cinnyridee, Sugar-eaters ; Trochilidee, IIumming-birds;—in which families the beak and feet are more remarkable for their tenuity and length : and Promeropidee, Hoopoes ; liphagidee, Iloney-suckers ; Nectariniade, Nec tar-birds ;—in which the slenderness of the beak and feet is less remarkable.