340 



ACCIPITER PALUMBARIUS. THE GOSHAWK. 



Falco Palumbarius. Linn. Syst. Nat. I. 130. 



Falco Palumbarius. Lath. Ind. Orn. L 29. Adult. 



Falco gentilis. Lath. Ind. Orn. I. 29. Young. 



Goshawk. Mont. Orn. Diet. 



L'Autour. Falco Palumbarius. Temm. Man. d'Orn. I. 55 ; IIL 27. 



Goshawk. Astur Palumbarius. Selb. Illustr. I. 2,9. 



Accipiter palumbarius. Goshawk. Jen. Brit. Vert. An. 85. 



Male about twenty inches long, with the upper parts darh 

 bluish-grey, the crown of the head and a broad band on its sides 

 black, the lower white, transversely barred with blachish-grey, and 

 marJced with longitudinal shaft-lines. Female about twenty-five 

 inches long, with the colouring similar, but the upper parts grey- 

 ish-brown. Young broion above, the feathers edged with reddish- 

 %1'hite, the head brown, the nape yelloicish-white, streaked tcith 

 dark brown, the lower parts yellowish-white, with longitudinal 

 oblong dusky spots. 



Male. — The Goshawk, which has become so exceedingly 

 rare in Britain, that I have never been able to obtain a recent 

 specimen, and have not seen more than half a dozen in muse- 

 ums, is among the most beautiful of our rapacious birds, being 

 in form intermediate between the Sparrow Hawk and the 

 Brown Buzzard, but in most respects much more nearly allied 

 to the former than to the latter. Its body is moderately full, 

 its neck rather short, its head of moderate size, roundish, and 

 flattened above. The bill short, strong, with the dorsal line of 

 the upper mandible nearly straight and slightly declinate to the 

 edge of the cere, then decurved in about the fourth of a circle, 

 its sides slightly convex, the edges with a rather prominent 

 broad lobe, behind which is a slight festoon, the tip trigonal 

 and acute ; the lower mandible \vith the angle wide, the dorsal 



