his eyes, as if quite passive. Though he lived so long without food, he was found on dissection to be exceedingly fat, his stomach being enveloped in a mass of solid fat of nearly an inch in thickness.

The white-breasted hawk is twenty-two inches long, and four feet in extent; cere, pale green; bill, pale blue, black at the point; eye, bright straw colour; eyebrow, projecting greatly; head, broad, flat, and large; upper part of the head, sides of the neck and back, brown, streaked and seamed with white and some pale rust; scapulars and wing-coverts spotted with white; wing quills much resembling the preceding species; tail coverts, white, handsomely barred with brown; tail, slightely rounded, of a pale brown colour, varying in some to a sorrel, crossed by nine or ten bars of black, and tipt for half an inch with white; wings, brown, barred with dusky; inner vanes nearly all white; chin, throat, and breast, pure white, with the exception of some slight touches of brown that enclose the chin; femorals, yellowish white, thinly marked with minute touches of rust; legs, bright yellow, feathered half way down; belly, broadly spotted with black or very deep brown; the tips of the wings reach to the middle of the tail.

My reasons for inclining to consider this a distinct species from the last, is that of having uniformly found the present two or three inches larger than the former, though this may possibly be owing to their greater age.

22. FALCO HYEMALIS, WILSON. — WINTER falcon.

WILSON, PL. XXXV. FIG. I. ADULT MALE.

THIS elegant and spirited hawk visits us from the north early in November, and leaves us late in March.

He is a dexterous frog catcher; and, that he may pursue his profession with full effect, takes up his winter residence almost entirely among our meadows and marshes. He sometimes stuffs himself so enormously with these reptiles, that the prominency of his craw makes a large bunch, and he appears to fly with difficulty. I have taken the broken fragments, and whole carcasses of ten frogs, of different dimensions, from the crop of a single individual. Of his genius and other exploits, I am unable to say much. He appears to be a fearless and active bird, silent, and not very shy. One which I kept for some time, and which was slightly wounded, disdained all attempts made to reconcile him to confinement; and would not suffer a person to approach without being highly irritated, throwing himself backward, and striking, with expanded talons, with great fury. Though shorter winged than some of his tribe, yet I have no doubt, but, with proper care, he might be trained to strike nobler game, in a bold style, and with great effect. But the education of hawks in this country may well be postponed for a time, until fewer improvements remain to be made in that of the human subject.

Length of the winter hawk twenty inches; extent forty-one inches, or nearly three feet six inches; cere and legs, yellow, the latter long, and feathered for an inch below the knee; bill, bluish black, small, furnished with a tooth in the upper mandible; eye, bright amber, cartilage over the eye, very prominent, and of a dull green; head, sides of the neck, and throat, dark brown, streaked with white; lesser coverts with a strong glow of ferruginous; secondaries, pale brown, indistinctly barred with darker; primaries, brownish orange, spotted with black, wholly black at the tips; tail, long, slightly rounded, barred alternately with dark and pale brown; inner vanes, white, exterior feathers, brownish orange; wings, when closed, reach rather beyond the middle of the tail; tail coverts, white, marked with heartshaped spots of brown, breast and belly, white, with numerous long drops of brown, the shafts blackish;

femoral feathers, large, pale yellow ochre, marked with Rumerous minute streaks of pale brown; claws, black. The legs of this bird are represented by different authors as slender; but I saw no appearance of this in those I examined.

The female is considerably darker above, and about two inches longer.

23. FALCO LINEATUS, WILSON.*-RED-SHOULDERED HAWK.

sea.

WILSON, PLATE LIII. FIG. III.

THIS species is more rarely met with than either of the former. Its haunts are in the neighbourhood of the It preys on larks, sandpipers, and the small ringed plover, and frequently on ducks. It flies high and irregularly, and not in the sailing manner of the longwinged hawks. I have occasionally observed this bird near Egg Harbour, in New Jersey, and once in the meadows below this city. This hawk was first trans mitted to Great Britain by Mr Blackburne, from Long Island, in the state of New York. With its manner of building, eggs, &c. we are altogether unacquainted.

The red-shouldered hawk is nineteen inches long; the head and back are brown, seamed and edged with rusty; bill, blue black; cere and legs, yellow; greater wing-coverts and secondaries, pale olive brown, thickly spotted on both vanes with white and pale rusty; primaries, very dark, nearly black, and barred or spotted with white; tail, rounded, reaching about an inch and a half beyond the wings, black, crossed by five bands of white, and broadly tipt with the same; whole breast and belly, bright rusty, speckled and spotted with transverse rows of white, the shafts black; chin and cheeks, pale brownish, streaked also with black; iris, reddish hazel; vent, pale ochre, tipt with rusty; legs, feathered a little below the

This appears to be the young male of the winter falcon.

knees, long; these and the feet, a fine yellow; claws, black; femorals, pale rusty, faintly barred with a darker tint.

In the month of April I shot a female of this species, and the only one I have yet met with, in a swamp, seven or eight miles below Philadelphia. The eggs were, some of them, nearly as large as peas, from which circumstance, I think it probable, they breed in such solitary parts even in this state. In colour, size, and markings, it differed very little from the male described above. The tail was scarcely quite so black, and the white bars not so pure; it was also something larger.

24. FALCO ULIGINOSUS, WILSON.-FALCO CYANEUS, LINNÆUS.

MARSH HAWK.

WILSON, PLATE LI. FIG. I.-YOUNG FEMALE.

A DRAWING of this hawk was transmitted to Mr Edwards, more than fifty years ago, by Mr William Bartram, and engraved in Plate 291 of Edwards's Ornithology. At that time, and I believe till now, it has been considered as a species peculiar to this country.

I have examined various individuals of this hawk, both in summer and in the depth of winter, and find them to correspond so nearly with the ring-tail of Europe, that I have no doubt of their being the same species.

This hawk is most numerous where there are extensive meadows and salt marshes, over which it sails very low, making frequent circuitous sweeps over the same ground, in search of a species of mouse, very abundant in such situations. It occasionally flaps the wings, but is most commonly seen sailing about within a few feet of the surface. They are usually known by the name of the mouse-hawk along the sea-coast of New Jersey, where

they are very common. Several were also brought me last winter from the meadows below Philadelphia. Having never seen its nest, I am unable to describe it from my own observation. It is said, by European writers, to build on the ground, or on low limbs of trees. Mr Pennant observes, that it sometimes changes to a rust-coloured variety, except on the rump and tail. It is found, as was to be expected, at Hudson's Bay, being native in both this latitude and that of Britain. We are also informed that it is common in the open and temperate parts of Russia and Siberia; and extends as far as Lake Baikal, though it is said not to be found in the north of Europe.*

The marsh hawk is twenty-one inches long, and three feet eleven inches in extent; cere and legs, yellow, the former tinged with green, the latter long and slender; nostril, large, triangular; this and the base of the bill, thickly covered with strong curving hairs, that rise from the space between the eye and bill, arching over the base of the bill and cere; this is a particular character istic; bill, blue, black at the end; eye, dark hazel; cartilage overhanging the eye, and also the eyelid, bluish green; spot under the eye, and line from the front over it, brownish white; head above and back, dark glossy chocolate brown, the former slightly seamed with bright ferruginous; scapulars, spotted with the same under the surface; lesser coverts and band of the wing, here and there edged with the same; greater coverts and primaries, tipt with whitish; quills deep brown at the extreme half, some of the outer ones hoary on the exterior edge ; all the primaries, yellowish white on the inner vanes and upper half, also barred on the inner vanes with black; tail, long, extending three inches beyond the wings, rounded at the end, and of a pale sorrel colour, crossed by four broad bars of very dark brown, the two middle feathers excepted, which are barred with deep and lighter shades of chocolate brown; chin, pale ferruginous; round the neck, a collar of bright rust colour;

* Pallas, as quoted by Pennant.