THE CUCKOO-FALCONS (Baza).
These birds have the soft plumage of a Honey-Kite, and yet possess the toothed bill of a Falcon, so that they are placed among the Falconinæ; but, because of their Kite-like plumage, they follow close to the Perns and Honey-Kites. They not only possess the usual tooth of the Falcon’s bill, but a second is actually present, so that there is no difficulty in recognising a member of the genus Baza. The American Cuckoo-Falcons (Harpagus) are the only other birds of prey which have a double-toothed bill.
The name of “Cuckoo”-Falcon has been given to these birds on account of their actual resemblance to a Cuckoo, in the grey colour of the back with the reddish bars on the under surface. They have also a very large yellow eye. The distribution of the genus Baza is singular, and it is one of those forms which does not occur in Europe, but exhibits the affinity which is often seen between certain African and Indian birds. About nine different kinds are known, each having its own limited range. Thus Swainson’s Cuckoo-Falcon (B. cuculoides[201]) is found in the forest country from Senegambia to Gaboon in West Africa, and is replaced by Baza Verreauxi in the forests of Natal. In Madagascar a third species (B. madagascariensis) occurs, and on crossing the Indian Ocean a fourth kind (B. ceylonensis) is found inhabiting Ceylon. Malacca and the Sunda Islands have their own Baza sumatrensis, the Philippines B. magnirostris, the island of Celebes B. erythrothorax, the Moluccas and New Guinea B. Reinwardti, and Northern Australia, B. subcristata. None of these birds appear to be migratory, and their geographical distribution is interesting when traced out on a map of the world.
From their shy and retiring habits, but little has been recorded of their life. Verreaux’s Cuckoo-Falcon is said to frequent the dense bush in Natal, and Captain Harford shot one in that country while engaged upon an ant-hill, and their food appears to consist of Grasshoppers and Mantidæ, while another observer took from the stomach of one of these birds remains of a green Mantis, of Locusts, and of a Chameleon. This species is one of the largest of the Cuckoo-Falcons, measuring seventeen inches in length, and the colour is dark ashy-grey; deeper ash-colour on the head and crest; the sides of the face, throat, and chest, are clear ashy; the breast white, banded across with pale rufous brown; the under tail-coverts being pure white; both the wings and tail are barred with dark brown. The sexes of these birds differ very little in size.
THE FALCONETS (Microhierax[202]).
This name is applied to a genus of tiny Falcons, which are peculiar to the Indian region. One of them, the Indian Falconet (Microhierax cærulescens), is found in the Himalayas and the Burmese countries. A second one is peculiar to Assam, a third to the Philippine Islands, and a fourth to the interior of China, while the fifth and remaining species is found in the Malayan Peninsula and the Sunda Islands.
Not one of these little Hawks is seven inches in length, and even to this day there are many authors who think that they are Butcher-birds or Shrikes, and not Hawks at all. They are, however, true Falcons, though of very small size, and are said to be used by native chiefs for hawking insects and Button-quails, being thrown from the hand like a ball; but this story has been discredited of late, the Besra, a small Sparrow-Hawk, being probably the bird alluded to. The Falconets are known to sit solitary on high trees, and according to native accounts they feed on small birds and insects.
THE PEREGRINE FALCON (Falco peregrinus[203]).
This noble bird justifies his name of peregrinus, by his distribution over the earth’s surface. The ordinary Peregrine, which is still found in suitable places breeding on British coasts, is met with all over Europe and Northern Asia, ranging into South Africa and India in winter, extending throughout China to the Sunda Islands, and the Philippine Archipelago. In North America he is also widely distributed, and is as plentiful as in Europe. In the southern hemisphere the Peregrines, though strictly of the same type as the European bird, are always darker in colour, and have blacker faces and heads. The Australian Peregrine is called Falco melanogenys,[204] and extends its range from the Australian continent to New Caledonia and the New Hebrides, and as far north as Java. In South Africa the resident Peregrine is a very small, dark-coloured bird, and is called Falco minor. This species is also met with in North-eastern Africa, and even ranges into the Mediterranean, as it has been shot in Rhodes, Sardinia, and Morocco. Again, in Chili, another dark-faced form occurs, the Falco nigriceps,[205] not unlike its Australian relative.
To write a history of the Peregrine Falcon would be almost to write a history of falconry, and although it would be beyond the limits of the present work to enter deeply into the subject, a few words must be said about it here. The art of falconry probably came from the East, where it is still practised, and an ancient bas-relief was found by Sir Austen Layard, among the ruins of Khorsabad, depicting a falconer with a Hawk on his wrist, thus proving the antiquity of the pursuit. In Great Britain it was formerly much in vogue, and in Salvin and Brodrick’s work on “Falconry in the British Islands” there will be found an interesting résumé of the art, as performed in Great Britain, from ancient times down to the present. It is lamentable to think of the way in which these noble birds, once the pride and favourite of monarchs, are now shot down and classed as vermin. The strict way of preserving game which has been common of late years, and the general use of firearms, have, no doubt, been the chief causes of the destruction of the larger Falcons, and it will take some time to disabuse the vulgar prejudices of gamekeepers, and of some proprietors, as to the mistake that is made in killing off every kind of raptorial bird indiscriminately. A protest which was penned by Mr. G. E. Freeman, in his “Falconry,” is worthy of reproduction here:—“All Hawks, when they have a choice, invariably choose the easiest flight. This fact is of the last importance in the matter before us. I confess that I at once give it the chief place in this argument. Who has not heard of the Grouse disease? It has been attributed, sometimes respectively, and sometimes collectively, to burnt heather; to heather poisoned from the dressings put on Sheep; to the Sheep themselves cropping the tender shoots and leaves of the plant, and thus destroying the Grouse’s food; to the tape-worm; to shot which has wounded but not killed; and perhaps to other things besides. It may be, I doubt not, correctly referred to any or to all of these. Of this, however, there appears no question that from whatever cause it springs it is propagated. A diseased parent produces a diseased child. Now, I say that when every Hawk is killed upon a large manor, the balance of Nature is forgotten, or ignored; and that Nature will not overlook an insult. She would have kept her wilds healthy; destroy her appointed instruments, and beware of her revenge!”