Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/12

F A L F A L the passover, the harvest feast, the Baala Maztdat or feast of tabernacles (during which, however, no booths are built), the day of covenant or assembly, and Abraham s day. It is believed that after death the soul remains in a place of darkness till the third day, when the first taskar or sacrifice for the dead is offered : prayers are read in the niesgecd for the repose of the departed, and for seven days a formal lament takes place every morning in his house. No coffins are used, and a stone vault is built over the corpse so that it may not come into direct contact with the earth. The Falashas are an industrious people, living for the most part in villages of their own, or, if they settle in a Christian or Mahometan town, occupying a separate quarter. They en gage in agriculture, manufacture pottery, iron ware, and cloth, and are specially sought after for their skill in mason- work. Their numbers are variously estimated at from 80,000 to 200,000. See Nott and Gliddon, Types of Mankind, 1868; Flad, Zwolf Jahrc in Abyssinia, Basel, 1869, and his Falashcs of Abyssinia, translated from the German by S. P. Goodhart, London, 1869. FALCON (Latin, Falco; 1 French, Faucon ; Teutonic, Falk or Yalken), a word now restricted to the high-couraged and long-winged Birds-of-Prey which take their quarry as it moves ; but formerly it had a very different meaning, being by the naturalists of the last and even of the present century extended to a great number of birds comprised in the genus Falco of Linnaeus and writers of his day, 2 while, on the other hand, by falconers, it was, and still is, techni cally limited to the female of the birds employed by them in their vocation (see FALCOXRY), whether " long-winged " and therefore "noble," or "short-winged" and "ignoble." According to modern usage, the majority of the Falcons, in the sense first given, may be separated into five very dis tinct groups : (1) the Falcons pure and simple (Falco proper) ; (2) the large northern Falcons (Hierofalco, Cuvier) ; (3) the "Desert Falcons" (Genncea, Kaup); (4) the Merlins (jEsalon, Kaup) ; and (5) the Hobbies (Ilt/potriorchis, Boie). The precise order in which these should be ranked need not concern us here, but it must be mentioned that a sixth group, the Kestrels (Tinnunculus, Vieillot) is often added to them. This, however, appears to have been justi fiably reckoned a distinct genus, and its consideration may for the present be deferred. The typical Falcon is by common consent allowed to be that almost cosmopolitan species to which unfortunately the English epithet - peregrine" (i.e., strange or wandering) has been attached. It is the Falco pereyriuus of Tunstall (1771) and of most recent ornithologists, though some 3 prefer the specific name commimis^api>ied by J. F. Gmelin a few years later (1788) to a bird which, if his diagnosis be correct, could not have been a true Falcon at all, since it had yellow irides a colour never met with in the eyes of any bird now called by naturalists a " Falcon." This species inhabits suitable localities throughout the greater part of the globe, though examples from North America have by some received specific recognition as F. anatum 1 Unknown to classical writers the earliest use of this word is said to be by Servius Honoratus (circa 390-480 A.D.) in his notes on JEn. lib. x. vcrs. 145. It seems possibly to be the Latinized form of the Teutonic Folk, though falx is commonly accounted its root. - The nomenclature of nearly all the older writers on this point is extremely confused, and the attempt to unravel it would hardly repay the trouble, and would undoubtedly occupy more space than could here be allowed. What many of them, even so lately as Pennant s time, termed the " Gentle Falcon " is certainly the bird we now call the Gos- Hawk(i.r., Goose-Hawk), which name itself may have been transferred to the Astur palumbariiis of modern ornithologists, from one of the long^winged Birds-of-Prey. 3 Among them Mr Sharpe, who, in Ms recent Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum, has besides rejected much of the evidence that the experience of those who have devoted years of study to the Falcons has supplied. the " Duck-Hawk," and those from Australia have been described as distinct under the name of F. inelanogenys. Here, as in so many other cases, it is almost impossible to decide as to which forms should, and which should not, be accounted merely local races. In size not .sur passing a Raven, this Falcon (fig. 1) is perhaps the most powerful Bird-of-Prey for its bulk that flics, and its courage is not less than its power. It is the species, in Europe, most commonly trained for the sport of hawk ing (see FALCONRY). Volumes have been written upon it, and to attempt a complete account of it is, within the limits now available, impossible. The plumage of the adult FIG. 1. Peregrine Falcon. is generally blackish-blue above, and white, with a more or less deep cream-coloured tinge, beneath the lower parts, except the chin and throat, being barred transversely with black, while a black patch extends from the bill to the ear-coverts, and descends on either side beneath the mandible. The young have the upper parts deep blackish-brown, and the lower white, more or less strongly tinged with ochraceous-brown, and striped longitudinally with blackish-brown. From Port Kennedy, the most northern part of the American continent, to Tasmania, and from the shores of the Sea of Ochotsk to Mencloza in the Argentine territory, there is scarcely a country in which this Falcon has not been found. Specimens have been re ceived from the Cape of Good Hope, and it is only a ques tion of the technical differentiation of species, whether it does not extend to Cape Horn. Fearless as it is, and adapt ing itself to almost every circumstance, it will form its eyry equally on the sea-washed cliffs, the craggy mountains, or (though more rarely) the drier spots of a marsh in the northern hemisphere, as on trees (says Schlegel)in the forests of Java, or the waterless ravines of Australia. In the United Kingdom it was formerly very common, and hardly a high rock from the Shetlands to the Isle of Wight but had a pair as its tenants. But the British gamekeeper has long held the mistaken faith that it is his worst foe, and the number of pairs which are now allowed to rear their brood unmolested in these islands must be small indeed. Yet its utility to the game-preserver, by destroying every one of his most precious wards that shews any sign of infirmity, can hardly be questioned by reason, and no one has more earnestly urged its claims to protection than Mr G. E. Free man (Falconry, <tc., p. 10). 4 Nearly allied to this Falcon 4 It is not to be inferred, however, as many writers have done, that Falcons habitually prey upon birds in which disease has made any