the name of Linnaeus's first order of Birds. See Zoology.

Among the Romans, the term accipiter signified a hawk, and which, from its being very carnivorous, they considered as a bird of bad omen;

Oditum accipitrem, quia semper vivit in armis. Ovid.

Pliny, however, tells us, that in some cases, particularly in marriage, it was esteemed a bird of good omen, because it never eats the hearts of other birds; intimating thereby, that no differences in a married state ought to reach the heart. The accipiter was worshipped as a divinity by the inhabitants of Tentyra, an island in the Nile, being considered by them as the image of the sun; and hence we find, that luminary represented, in hieroglyphics, under the figure of a hawk.