FALCO LINEATUS* 



RED-SHOULDERED HAWK. 



[Plate LIII. Fig. 3.] 

 Arct. Zool. p. 206, No. 102.— L.\tit. i., 56, No. 36.— Turt. Syst. p. 153 



This Hawk is more rarely met with than either of those in the same 

 plate. Its haunts are in the neighborhood 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 Harbor, 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 build- 

 ing, 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 ; prima- 

 ries 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 tipped 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, tipped 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. 



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 Phila- 

 delphia. 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 color, size and markings, it diifered 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. 



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

 species. 



(78) 



