22 NORTH AMERICAN OOLOGY. PART I. 



visits in summer, and where also it occasionally breeds. Mr. Gosse states that it is 

 the most common bii-d of this family in Jamaica, of which island it is a resident, 

 and where, though he never met with its nest himself, he was assiu-ed by others 

 that it does breed.' Mr. Lembeye and Dr. Gundlach both include it in their lists of 

 the birds of Cuba, and the latter also marks it as breeding in that island. It has 

 been observed in Florida, Mississippi, Ohio, and "Wisconsin, and is not uncommon 

 in all the New England States, where it is resident throughout the year. In the 

 Southern States it is most abundant m the winter months. 



Some doubts have prevailed whether this, or a distinct but closely identical species, 

 is found on the Pacific coast, and it now seems quite probable that the Buteo borealis 

 is not found there.~ A species quite abundant in California has, untU recently, 

 been supposed to be the Buteo sioainsoni. Mr. Cassin, Dr. Heermann, Dr. Gambel, 

 Dr. Trudeau, and others, have taken this Western variety to be that species. The 

 examination of three undoubted specimens of the veritable B. swainsoni first mduced 

 Mr. Cassin to revise his views in respect to the Western varieties, and for a while to 

 regard them as exhibiting no differences but such as are consistent with a specific 

 identity with the borealis. To this opinion I was not quite able to subscribe. The 

 eeers of the Western birds had been described to me as exhibiting such constant and 

 well-marked variations from those of the common Red-tail, that I could not believe 

 them to belong to the same bird. 



Soon after the publication of ]\Ir. Cassin's valuable paper upon the Falconidte of 

 North America,^ I expressed to him, in view of the constant difference between the 

 eggs of the Eastern and Western varieties, a belief that, if the eggs from the West 

 were those of a Red-tailed Hawk, the latter would be found to be a distinct, however 

 closely allied, species, and not our Eastern Red-tailed Hawk. These anticipations 

 have been fidly confirmed. Mr. Cassin has since satisfactorily ascertained the exist- 

 ence of a constancy of difiierent characters,^ which readily distinguish the Western 

 bird from the Avell-known species of the Atlantic coast, besides the peculiarities of 

 their voice and the difference of their eggs, all of which appear to be sufficiently 

 well marked to establish the two varieties as specifically distmct. These differences 

 were first noticed by Messrs. Nuttall and ToAvnsend, the former of whom described 

 the Western bird as a distinct species.^ 



* 



^ " A young friend informs me that he lately knew of the nest of this Hawk, a large mass near the top 

 of an immense cotton-tree, into which he observed the old birds frequently go. It was at Content, in the 

 parish of St. Elizabeth. The gigantic dimensions of the tree rendered its summit perfectly inaccessible, 

 and prevented particular examination." (Gosse's Birds of Jamaica, p. 14.) 



^ As it now appears to be a well-ascertained fact that the common variety of California is a different 

 bird from the Red-tailed Hawk of the Atlantic States, it becomes a matter of much interest to define the 

 limits of the two species, and to ascertain to what extent, if any, they frequent common grounds. 

 There is at present no reason for doubting the identity of the West-Indian bird with that of the Atlantic 

 States. 



3 Proceedings of Philadelphia Academy, February, 1855, p. 279. Cassin's Notes on North American 

 Falconida;. 



* Proceedings of Philadelphia Academy, Februaiy, 1856, p. 39. 



5 Nuttall's Manual, I, 1840, 112. 



