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frequent attacks which are made upon them, when successful in fishing, by the piratical Bald Eagles, afford a spectacle of no common interest. I sometimes took notice, that when the Fish-Hawk was likely to escape from a single enemy, and had wearied his pursuer by the dexterity of his manœuvres, a fresh Eagle joined in the chase, and then all chance of escape was hopeless.

Wilson states, that this species, on the coast of New Jersey, commences laying about the first of May; but I observed it sitting, in East Florida, on the third of March. The weather was then warm: Fahrenheit being at 80° in the shade.—G. Ord.

SPECIES 7. FALCO ATRICAPILLUS.*

ASH-COLOURED, OR BLACK-CAP HAWK.

[Plate LII.-Fig. 3.]

PEALE'S Museum, No. 406.

Or this beautiful species I can find no precise description. The Ash-coloured Buzzard of Edwards differs so much from this, particularly in wanting the fine zig-zag lines below, and the black cap, that I cannot for a moment suppose them to be the same. The individual from which the drawing was made, is faithfully represented in the plate, reduced to one half its natural dimensions. This bird was shot within a few miles of Philadelphia, and is now preserved, in good order, in Peale's

museum.

Its general make and aspect denote great strength and spirit; its legs are strong, and its claws of more than proportionate size. Should any other specimen or variety of this Hawk, differing from the present, occur during the publication of this work, it will enable me more accurately to designate the species.

The Black-cap Hawk is twenty-one inches in length; the bill and cere are blue; eye reddish amber; crown black, bordered on each side by a line of white, finely specked with black; these lines of white meet on the hind-head; whole upper parts slate,

* Falco Palumbarius, LINN. As was suspected by Wilson, this is not a new species, but the celebrated Goshawk. The following synonymes are given by Prince Musignano: Falco Columbarius, GMEL. Syst. 1, p. 281. Lath.— TEMM.-F. gentilis, LINN. GMEL. Syst. 1, p. 270. LATH. (young) F. gallinarius. LINN. LATH. (very young female.) L'Autour, BUFF. Pl. Enl. 418. (adult) L'Autour sors, BUFF. Pl. Enl. 461. (young.) Le Buzard, BUFF. Pl. Enl. 423. (very young female.) See Journal. Acad. Nat. Sc. 1, p. 346.

ASH-COLOURED, OR BLACK-CAP HAWK.

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tinged with brown, slightest on the quills; legs feathered half way down, and, with the feet, of a yellow colour; whole lower parts and femorals white, most elegantly speckled with fine transverse pencilled zig-zag lines of dusky, all the shafts being a long black line; vent pure white.

If this be not the celebrated Goshawk, formerly so much esteemed in falconry, it is very closely allied to it. I have never myself seen a specimen of that bird in Europe, and the descriptions of their best naturalists vary considerably; but from a careful examination of the figure and account of the Goshawk, given by the ingenious Mr. Bewick, (Brit. Birds, v. 1, p. 65.) I have very little doubt that the present will be found to be the same.

The Goshawk inhabits France and Germany; is not very common in South Britain, but more frequent in the northern parts of the island, and is found in Russia and Siberia. Buffon, who reared two young birds of this kind, a male and female, observes, that "the Goshawk before it has shed its feathers, that is, in its first year, is marked on the breast and belly with longitudinal brown spots; but after it has had two moultings they disappear, and their place is occupied by transverse waving bars, which continue during the rest of its life;" he also takes notice, that though the male was much smaller than the female, it was fiercer and more vicious.

Pennant informs us that the Goshawk is used by the emperor of China in his sporting excursions, when he is usually attended by his grand falconer, and a thousand of inferior rank. Every bird has a silver plate fastened to its foot, with the name of the falconer who has the charge of it, that in case it should be lost, it may be restored to the proper person; but if he should not be found, the bird is delivered to another officer, called the guardian of lost birds, who, to make his situation known, erects his standard in a conspicuous place among the army of hunters. The same writer informs us, that he examined in the Leverian museum, a specimen of the Goshawk which came from America, and which was superior in size to the European.

VOL. I.-N n

SPECIES 8. FALCO BOREALIS.

RED-TAILED HAWK.

[Plate LII.-Fig. 1.]

Arct. Zool. p. 205, No. 100.-American Buzzard, LATH. 1, 50.— TURT. Syst. p. 151.-F. Aquilinus, cauda ferruginea, Great Eagle Hawk, BARTRAM, p. 290.—PEALE's Museum, No. 182.

THE figure of this bird, and those of the other two Hawks in the same plate, are reduced to exactly half the dimensions of the living subjects. These representations are offered to the public with a confidence in their fidelity; but these, I am sorry to say, are almost all I have to give towards elucidating their history. Birds naturally thinly dispersed over a vast extent of country, retiring during summer to the depth of the forests to breed, approaching the habitations of man, like other thieves and plunderers, with shy and cautious jealousy, seldom permitting a near advance, subject to great changes of plumage, and, since the decline of falconry, seldom or never domesticated, offer to those who wish eagerly to investigate their history, and to delineate their particular character and manners, great and insurmountable difficulties. Little more can be done in such cases than to identify the species, and trace it through the various quarters of the world, where it has been certainly met with.

The Red-tailed Hawk is most frequently seen in the lower parts of Pennsylvania, during the severity of winter. Among the extensive meadows that border the Schuylkill and Delaware, below Philadelphia, where flocks of Larks, (Alauda magna) and where mice and moles are in great abundance, many individuals of this Hawk spend the greater part of the winter. Others prowl around the plantations, looking out for vagrant chickens; their method of seizing which, is by sweeping swiftly over the spot, and grappling them with their talons, bearing

them away to the woods. The bird from which the figure in the plate was drawn, was surprised in the act of feeding on a hen he had just killed, and which he was compelled to abandon. The remains of the chicken were immediately baited to a steeltrap, and early the next morning the unfortunate Red-tail was found a prisoner, securely fastened by the leg. The same hen which the day before he had massacred, was, the very next, made the means of decoying him to his destruction; in the eye of the farmer a system of fair and just retribution.

This species inhabits the whole United States; and, I believe, is not migratory, as I found it in the month of May, as far south as Fort Adams, in the Mississippi territory. The young were at that time nearly as large as their parents, and were very clamorous, making an incessant squeeling noise. One, which I shot, contained in its stomach mingled fragments of frogs and lizards.

The Red-tailed Hawk is twenty inches long, and three feet nine inches in extent; bill blue black; cere and sides of the mouth yellow, tinged with green; lores and spot on the under eye-lid white, the former marked with fine radiating hairs; eyebrow, or cartilage, a dull eel skin colour, prominent, projecting over the eye; a broad streak of dark brown extends from the sides of the mouth backwards; crown and hind-head dark brown, seamed with white and ferruginous; sides of the neck dull ferruginous, streaked with brown; eye large; iris pale amber; back and shoulders deep brown; wings dusky, barred with blackish; ends of the five first primaries nearly black; scapulars barred broadly with white and brown; sides of the tail-coverts white, barred with ferruginous, middle ones dark, edged with rust; tail rounded, extending two inches beyond the wings, and of a bright red brown, with a single band of black near the end, and tipt with brownish white; on some of the lateral feathers are slight indications of the remains of other narrow bars; lower parts brownish white; the breast ferruginous, streaked with dark brown; across the belly a band of interrupted spots of brown;

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