FALCO LINEATUS.*

RED-SHOULDERED HAWK.

[Plate LIII.-Fig. 3.]

Arct. Zool. p. 206, No. 102.—LATH. 1, 56, No. 36.—TURT. Syst, p. 153. PEALE's Museum, No. 205.

THIS Hawk is more rarely met with than either of those in the same plate. Its haunts are in the neighbourhood of the sea. 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 Long-winged 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 transmitted to Great Britain by Mr. Blackburne, from Long Island, in the state of New York. Of its manner of building, eggs, &c. we are altogether unacquainted. The Red-shouldered Hawk is nineteen inches in length; 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 knees, long; these and the feet a fine yellow; claws black; femorals pale rusty, faintly barred with a darker tint.

*This is stated by Prince Musignano to be the young male of the preceding species.

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.

SPECIES 16. FALCO ULIGINOSUS.*

MARSH HAWK,

[Plate LI.-Fig. 1.]

EDW. IV, 291.-LATH. 1, 90.—Arct. Zool. p. 208, No. 105.— BARTRAM, p. 290.-PEALE's Museum. No. 318.

A DRAWING of this Hawk was transmitted to Edwards more than fifty years ago, by Mr. William Bartram, and engraved in Plate 291 of Edwards' Natural History. 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, figured in Plate 50, and 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 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, * Falco pygargus, LINN.

†This opinion of Wilson's is in accordance with that of some recent ornithologists. We add the following Synonymes: F. cyaneus, GMEL. Syst. 1, p. 276.-LATH. Ind. orn. p. 39.—Ring-tail, PENN. Brit. Zool. 1, p. 194, No. 59. Hen Harrier, Id. p. 193. No. 58.-F. pygargus, LINN. Syst. 1, p. 89, No. 9, ed. 10.-Circus Hudsonius, VIEIL. Ois de l'Am. Sept. 1, p. 36, pl. 9-Busard SaintMartin, TEMM. Man. d'Orn. 1, p. 72.

to build on the ground, or on low limbs of trees. 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 characteristic; 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; breast, belly and vent, pale rust, shafted with brown; femorals long, tapering, and of the same pale rust tint; legs feathered near an inch below the knee. This was a female. The male differs chiefly in being rather lighter, and somewhat less.

* Pallas, as quoted by Pennant.

This Hawk is particularly serviceable to the rice fields of the southern states, by the havock it makes among the clouds of Rice Buntings, that spread such devastation among that grain, in its early stage. As it sails low and swiftly, over the surface of the field, it keeps the flocks in perpetual fluctuation, and greatly interrupts their depredations. The planters consider one Marsh Hawk to be equal to several negroes, for alarming the Rice-birds. Formerly the Marsh Hawk used to be numerous along the Schuylkill and Delaware, during the time the seeds of the Zizania were ripening, and the Reed-birds abundant; but they have of late years become less numerous here. Pennant considers the "strong, thick, and short legs" of this species as specific distinctions from the Ring-tailed Hawk; the legs, however, are long and slender; and a Marsh Hawk such as he has described, with strong, thick and short legs, is no where to be found in the United States.

NOTE-Montagu, in the "Supplement to the Ornithological Dictionary," an excellent work, positively asserts, that the F. cyaneus, and the F. pygargus, are the same species. This opinion the same writer had given in a paper, published in the ninth volume of the Linnean Transactions. If this be the fact, the name of pygargus must be retained for the species, it being that which was given to it by Linnæus, in the tenth edition of the Systema Naturæ, published in the year 1758.-G. Ord.

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