284 HISTORY OF THE 



them, knowing how destructive they are to the water fowls found 

 in the sloughs along the river bottoms. 



They nest in natural cavities in trees and on the sides of rocky 

 cliffs. Nest without lining. Eggs three or four, 2.25x1.70; 

 grayish ochre, spotted and blotched with reddish and dark choco- 

 late brown, running somewhat together, thickest about larger 

 end; in form, subspherical to rounded oval. 



Subgenus ^SALON Kaup. 



Two outer quills with inner webs emarginated near tips; first quill shorter 

 than fourtli. Tarsus not decidedly longer than middle toe; basal segment of 

 toes covered with small hexagonal or roundish scales. Adult males: Bluish 

 gray above, with blackish shaft streaks; hindneck spotted or mixed with whitish 

 and buffy or ochraceous; quills dusky; tail crossed by a greater or less number 

 of blackish bands, and tipped with whitish; lower parts whitish, buffy or light 

 rusty, striped with brownish or dusky. Adult females: Brownish above, the tail 

 usually with a greater or less number of lighter (usually narrow) bauds; top of 

 head streaked with blackish, and feathers of back and rump with shaft streaks 

 of the same; lower parts umeh as in the male, but without rusty tinge. Toung 

 {both sexes): Much like adult female, but darker, or else much tinged above with 

 ochraceous or rusty. {Ridgway.) 



Falco columbarius Linn. 



PIGEON HAWK. 

 PLATE XVni. 



Migratory; rare. Arrive in October; leave, usually, by the 

 first of April. I have a male in the ' ' Goss Ornithological Col- 

 lection" that I shot at Neosho Falls, June 10th, 1878. 



B. 7. K. 417. C. 505. G. 193, 133. U. 357. 



Habitat. The whole of North America; breeding chiefly 



north of the United States; south in winter to the West Indies 



and northern South America. 



Sp. Char. "■Adult male: Above, cinereous, varying in shade, but generally 

 of a slaty bluish cast; each feather with a distinct shaft streak of black, these 

 lines most conspicuous on the head above. Tail with a very broad subterminal 

 band of black, about an inch in width; there are indications of three other 

 bands, their continuity and distinction varying with the individual, but gener- 

 ally quite conspicuous, and each about half the width of the terminal one; the 

 subterminal black baud is succeeded by a terminal one of white, of about three- 

 sixteenths of an inch in width, sometimes broader; on the lateral feathers the 

 black bands are always conspicuous, being in form of transvei'se oblong spots, 

 crossing the shaft, but less extended on the outer web, which is often immacu- 

 late except at the eud, the broad termiual baud always extending to the edge of 



