FAMILY ACCIPITRIDAE 253 



ment in the grass it pounces quickly, with long legs and sharply 

 armed toes fully extended to reach through the open grass cover. 

 It may rise with its prey in its feet, but then drops back to the 

 ground in some open area where it has clear view around while it 

 eats. 



During March those that have wintered farther south are in 

 passage northward, and then the birds are more common. Those 

 noted in this movement travel in the great flocks of Swainson's and 

 broad-winged hawks. As the majority pass before the end of the 

 month, only a few are seen during April. 



ISCHNOSCELES CAERULESCENS (Vieillot): Crane Hawk; Guino 



Sparvius caerulescens Vieillot, Nouv. Diet, Hist. Nat,, nouv. ed., vol. 10, June 

 1817, p, 318. (Cayenne.) 



Size medium; slate to grayish black; tail long, black, with two 

 broad white or buff bands ; legs long and slender ; feet small, with 

 outer toe decidedly shorter than inner one; tibiotarsal joint flexible 

 both forward and backward. 



Description. — Length 430 to 500 mm. Adult, slate gray to blackish 

 slate ; primaries and secondaries dark neutral gray ; tail black, be- 

 coming gray at the end, tipped with white, with two broad bands of 

 buff or white, often variegated with gray ; under tail coverts banded 

 with white, or buff; legs and abdomen plain or banded narrowly 

 with white; under wing slaty black, banded narrowly with white 

 on under wing coverts, and with a prominent white band across the 

 outer primaries. 



Immature, upper throat, forehead, superciliary line, and streaks 

 on side of head and crown white ; a brownish wash over the blackish 

 upper surface ; upper tail coverts banded with white ; abdomen and 

 legs banded with buff. The eye in the immature is reddish brown to 

 orange (Dickey and van Rossem, Birds El Salvador, 1938, p. 130). 



Hellmayr and Conover (Cat. Birds Amer., pt. 1, no. 4, 1949, 

 p, 227) point out that Geranospiza Kaup, 1847, in current use for 

 this group of birds, is antedated by Ischnosceles Strickland, Ann. 

 Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 1, vol. 13, no. 86, June 1844, p. 409, type, 

 Falco gracilis Temminck. Under the rules of nomenclature Strick- 

 land's name is not invalidated by Ischnoscelis Burmeister, 1842, for 

 a genus of Coleoptera. 



Two subspecies (/. c. niger and /. c. halsarensis) are found in 

 the Republic, one in the west and the other in the east. 



These are hawks of slender form that range along the borders 

 of streams, usually in more open woodland. The exceptionally long 



