256 HISTORY OF THE 



chief delight. I admire their courage aud dash, but cannot find 

 it in my heart to say one word in their favor. 



Their nests are occasionally placed on rocky cliffs, but usually 

 in trees, often in the tops of the tallest. At Digby, Nova 

 Scotia, I found a pair nesting in a hemlock at least eighty feet 

 from the ground. Their nests are composed of sticks and 

 twigs, and lined with a few dry leaves, strips of bark and grasses. 

 Eggs usually three or four. They vary in form and size. A 

 set of four eggs, collected at Kingston, Mass., June 3d, 1876, 

 from a nest in a cedar, thirty feet from the ground, measure: 

 1.39x1.13, 1.42x1.15, 1.38x1.14, 1.37x1.17. The ground 

 color varies from a pale greenish to a bluish white, beautifully 

 marked with spots and confluent blotches of varying shades of 

 umber to dark brown; in form, rather roundish. 



Accipiter cooperi (Bonap.). 



COOPER'S HAWK. 

 PLATE XV. 



Resident; common in summer. Begin laying early in May. 



B. 15, 16. K. 431. C. 495. G. 200, 117. U. 333. 



Habitat. The whole of temperate North America; south 

 into southern Mexico. They breed in suitable localities through- 

 out the United S-tates. 



Sp. Chab. ^'■Adtolt male: Forehead, crown and occiput blackish plumbeous, 

 the latter snowy white beneath the surface; rest of upper parts slaty plumbeous, 

 the nape abruptly lighter than the occiput; feathers of the nape, back, scapulars 

 and rump with darker shaft lines; scapulars with concealed cordate aud circular 

 spots of white; upper tail coverts sharply tipped with white. Tail more brown- 

 ish than the rump, sharply tipped with pure white and crossed with three broad, 

 sharply-defined bands of black, the first of which is concealed, the last much 

 broadest; that portion of the shaft between the two exposed black bands white. 

 Lores grayish; cheeks and throat white, with fine, hair-like shaft streaks of black- 

 ish; ear coverts and sides of neck more ashy and more faintly streaked. Ground 

 color beneath pure white, but with detached transverse bars of rich vinaceous 

 rufous crossing the breast, jugulum, sides, flanks, abdomen and tibise; the white 

 bars everywhere (except on sides of the breast ) rather exceeding the rufous in 

 width; all the feathers (except tibial plumes) with distinct black shaft lines; 

 lower tail coverts immaculate pure white. Lining of the wing white, with 

 numerous cordate spots of rufous; coverts with transverse blackish bars; under 

 side of primaries silvery white, purest basally (tips dusky), crossed with cordate 

 bars of dusky, of which there are six (the first only indicated) upon the longest 



