MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 319 



adult females being banded transversely above, mucb as the young 



birds are. 



Florida specimens are considerably smaller than New England ones, the 

 former being intermediate in size between the latter and the West Indian 

 and South American representatives of this species, which have been re- 

 garded as distinct species, and to which various names have been applied 

 bv different writers. Audubon observes that he found this species in the 

 Southern States, and more especially in Florida, so much smaller than the 

 northern birds that he was at first inclined to consider them specifically 

 distinct, but finally felt sure they were the same. The colors, as usual 

 in other species, are generally brighter in the more southern exam- 

 ples. Wide variations in the color of the plumage in this species have 

 been long recognized, but, as Mr. Cassin has remarked, " they do not ap- 

 pear to be constant, nor peculiar to any locality." * 



84 * Accipiter fuscus Bonaparte. Sharp-shinned Hawk. 



Falcofuscus Gmelin, Syst. Nat., I, 280, 1783. 

 Accipiter fuscus Bonaparte, Geog. and Comp List, 5, 1838. 

 Astur fuscus Audubon, Syn., 18, 1839 

 Falcodubius Gmelin, Syst. Nat., I, 281, 1788. 

 Falcovelox Wilson, Am. Orn., V, 116, 1812. 

 Falco pennsjjlvanicus Wilson, Ibid., VI, 13, 1812. 

 Accipiter slriatus Vieillot, Ois. Am. Sept., I, 42, 1807. 

 Accipiter frimjilloides Vigors, Zoul. Journ., Ill, 434, 1827. 

 Accipiter pennsylvanicus Rich. & Swain., Faun. Bor. Am., II, 44, 1831. 

 Nisus Maifini Lesson, Traite d'Ornithol., I, 58, 1831. 

 Common. I was unable, however, to obtain specimens. 



In this species, as in the hawks generally, but more especially in the 

 group to which the present species belongs, there are wide variations in 

 color and size, not only with age and sex, but independently of either. 

 One of the most interesting features in the specimens before me, in respect 

 to these variations, is the much brighter color of the several western and 

 southwestern examples in the collection of the Museum, as compared with 

 New England ones. In one from Cheltenham, Missouri, the color of the 

 lower parts is nearly uniformly red ; the transverse dark lines, which in 

 adult eastern specimens usually occupy half the exposed surface of the 

 feathers, and often more, being in this specimen almost obsolete. The 

 tibial feathers are especially bright, while the tints are livelier throughout 

 the plumage. Other specimens from Fort Steilacoom, received from the 

 Smithsonian Institution, present nearly the same appearance. Although 

 the western representatives of the present species yet await some enter- 

 * Illust. Birds of California and Texas, etc., p. 93 



