FALCONID^ — DIURNAL RAPTORES. 471 



lining of the wing and upper tall-ooverts. continuous, uuvariegated black. Under sur- 

 face ot the primaries ashy white, more slaty terminally; ends with distinct, and other 

 portions with indistinct, mottled bars of dusky. Tail ashy brown on outer webs, white 

 on inner; both with a contused, rather longitudinal mottling of blackish; terminally, 

 there is a broad, nearly continuous subterminal band indicated by blotches, these mixed 

 very sUghtly with a rufous tinge. Primaries injured by shot, therefore proportions of 

 the quills cannot be determined. Wing,15.75; tail,9.10; culmen, 1.00; tarsus 2.90; middle 

 tpe,1.60; outer,1.15; inner.l.lS. 



Young male. (Gainesville, Texas, Nov. 16, 1876: G. H. Ragsdale*). Prevailing color 

 dark sooty brown, nearly black, the entire plumage white beneath the surface, showing 

 wherever the feathers are disarranged. Throat white, with a few streaks of sooty brown ; 

 lores whitish. Scapulars and larger wing-eoverts with large concealed bars and spots of 

 white; feathers of the rump, upper tail-coverts, flanks, tibite and crissum with indistinct 

 roundish spots of pale fulvous, pale grayish brown and dirty white, on the edges of the 

 feathers, the continuity of the dusky ground-color being thus broken. Kemiges gray- 

 ish brown, with distinct bands of sooty black, with a purplish reflection, these bands 

 averaging about .50 of an inch in width, .60-. 75 apart; on the secondaries they are three 

 in number, exclusive of those concealed by the greater coverts and the very indistinct 

 terminal one; rectrices similar to the remiges, but the black bars nearly equal in width 

 to the interspaces (both averaging about .45 of an inch in width), and seven in number on 

 the intermediate (not counting the nearly obsolete basal one); on the inner webs of the 

 intermediiie these bars are less regular, those toward the end of the feathers being 

 decidedly zigzag and oblique; inner webs mottled with grayish next the shaft, white 

 toward the edge, the bars narrower and more conspicuous than on the outer webs. 

 Lining of the wing and axillars blackish dusky, irregularly spotted with white and pale 

 fulvous; inner webs of primaries white anterior to their emarginatious, this white re- 

 lieved, however, by an irregular clouding and sprinkling of grayish. 



Fourth quill longest; third and fifth, .35 of an inch shorter, and equal; second,1.60; 

 shorter than the fourth, and exceeding the sixth in length; first, 4. 25 shorter than the 

 fourth, and intermediate between the eighth and ninth. 



Wing,16.20; tail.lO.OO; culmen, .98; tarsus, 3.50; middle toe, 1.70; outer toe decidedly 

 longer than the inner. 



The specimen last described calls to mind at first sight the young 

 of Buteo abbreviatus, on account of the numerous wliite spots which 

 show wherever the feathers are disarranged. It is, however, more 

 spotted below, and the general cast of the plumage is decidedly 

 more brownish ; while the proportions are, of course, entirely differ- 

 ent. From melanistic young specimens of B. borealis, it differs in 

 the conspicuous white spotting alluded to, in the decidedly greater 

 width and distinctness of the black band of the remiges and rec- 

 trices, as well as the more hoary cast of the interspaces between 

 the latter — especially on the intermedia. 



"This species, though smaller than the Ked-tail, to which he re- 

 garded it as allied, Audubon thought greatly superior to it in flight 

 and daring. Its flight is described as rapid, greatly protracted, 

 and so powerful as to enable it to seize the prey with apparent 

 ease, or effect its escape from its stronger antagonist, the Eed-tail, 



* This specimen was, at last accounts, in the collection of Dr. R. M. W. Gibbs, of Kala- 

 mazoo, Mich. (Of. Tlie NattiraHat and Fancier, Grand Rapids, Mich., Vol. I., No. 8, 

 August, 1877.) 



