The American goshawk has been included in the list of British birds on ‘somewhat slight evidence,’ as the author of the ‘Manual of British Birds’ says. The black kite (_Milvus nigrans_) is an African species, a summer visitant to Europe south of the Baltic, and has once been obtained in Great Britain. The swallow-tailed kite (_Elanoïdes furcatus_), an American species, which I once had the pleasure of seeing (not in a glass case, but sitting on a tree, and soaring in the air), has also been found as a straggler in this country. The honey-buzzard (_Pernis apivorus_) is a third species of hawk in this list which has disappeared from this country. Like the hobby and the osprey, it is (or was) a summer visitant, and has been known to breed in most English and Scottish counties from Hampshire to Aberdeenshire. Up to within four or five years ago a few pairs continued to return to us each summer, but these, too, have now vanished. This fine large hawk, in size the equal of the common buzzard, lived almost entirely on insect food, wasps and wild bees especially--hence its name of honey-buzzard. [Illustration: FIG. 73.--HONEY-BUZZARD. ¹⁄₁₂ natural size.] The remaining species to be noticed are all true falcons: the gyrfalcon (_Hierofalco gyrfalco_), an inhabitant of arctic Scandinavia, only once obtained in this country; the Greenland falcon (_Hierofalco candicans_), a wanderer to this country from north-west America and Greenland; the Iceland falcon (_Hierofalco islandicus_), a wanderer from Iceland; the red-footed falcon (_Tinnunculus vespertinus_), an occasional visitor from the warm countries of Europe; and the lesser kestrel (_Tinnunculus cenchris_), a visitor from southern Europe, where it breeds. Cormorant. Phalacrocorax carbo. [Illustration: FIG. 74.--CORMORANT. ¹⁄₁₁ natural size.] Upper head and neck black, striated with hair-like white feathers, those on the occiput being elongated, and forming a crest in spring; throat white; gular pouch yellow; mantle black and bronze-brown; all the other parts black, except a white patch on the thigh, assumed early in spring and lost in summer; iris emerald-green. _Female_: larger than the male, brighter in colour, and with longer crest. Length, three feet. * * * * *