THE MEXICAN GOSHAWK. 255 



The type specimen, No. 16.525 (PL 7, Fig. 7), U. S. National Museum col- 

 li'ction, from a set of U\o, Bendire collection, was taken Ijy the writer on 

 June G, 1872, on Rillitto Creek, near Tucson, Ai-izona. 



86. Archibuteo lagopus (Brunnich). 



ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK. 



Falco lagopus Brunnich, Ornithologia Borealis, 17G4, 4. 

 Archibuteo layopus Gray, List Genera of Birds, etl. 2, 1841, 3. 



(B— C— R— , C— U34:.) 



Geographical range: Northern parts of the Old Workl ; (Alaska?) 



The Rough-legged Buzzard has been included in the "x\. O. U. Code and 

 Check-list of N. A. Birds," based on specimens from Alaska, but Mr. Robert 

 Ridgway, in his "Manual of North American Birds, 1887," p. 240, in a foot-note 

 on this species, writes as follows: "So tar as evidence to date tends to sliow, the 

 typical form of this species, if a distinctly American race be recognized, must 

 be expunged from tlie 'List of North American Birds.'" 



According to Mr. H. Seebohm, "the true home of the Rough-leg'ged Buz- 

 zard Eagle is in the northern portions of the Euro])ean and Asiatic continents. 

 It breeds throughout Arctic Em'ope and Asia, being a very common species in 

 Norway and Sweden, up to the North Cape, becoming rarer in Russia, yet more 

 plentiful in Siberia, where it ranges as far to the east as the watershed of the 

 Yenesay and Lena. In the winter it retires southward to various parts of cen- 

 tral and southern Europe and the steppes of Russian Turkestan."^ 



Mr. Har\de Brown found it breeding in south Norway in 1871, tlie nests 

 usually being placed in clefts of more or less inaccessible rocks. In Lapland, 

 according to Wolley, they often breed in firs. The nuniber of eggs vary from 

 three to five. The nests are large, composed of sticks and lined with grasses; 

 Avhen placed on clitfs, sticks are frequently dispensed with, and it consists of a 

 sliylit hollow lined with grasses. In its g-eueral habits it resembles our Amer- 

 ican Rough-legged Hawk in every respect, and the diff"ereuces in plmuage are 

 but very slighl in the majority of specimens. 



According to Mr. Seeliohm, the eggs vary greatly in size and markings, 

 some being poorly marked while others are very richly blotched with dark 

 red, or clouded and mottled with pale brown. In some eggs the coloring- is 

 confined to a few large rich blotches of red, others are evenly spotted with 

 color just as intense over the entire surface. A more uncommon variety is 

 delicately streaked and penciled with a few irregular dashes of pale lirown, 

 something- like the e^^ of a Kite. Other varieties are seen in whicli all the 

 coloring is distriljuted in pale purplish shell markings, with perhaps a few 

 sti-eaks of rich bro^vn. They vary from 2.25 b}^ 2.1 inches in length, and from 

 1.8 to 1.65 inches in breadth (equal to 57.15 to 53.3-4 millimetres in length and 

 45.72 to 41.91 millimetres in breadth). 



'History of British Birds, .Seetiohni, 1883, Vol. i, pp. 111-115. 



