32 NORTH AMEEICAN OOLOGY. PART I. 



Three eggs in my cabinet, from Pennsylvania, Vermont, and New Jersey, exhibit 

 the following measurements : 2t6 by ItV ; lit by liV ; and Hf by l-rg- inches. In 

 the first of these, the ground color is a grayish or dirty white, with a slightly silvery 

 shade, and is nearly covered by large and irregular markings of faint purplish-brown, 

 and dull shadings of a lighter brown. The specimen described Avas given me by 

 Dr. James Trudeau as undoubted. In both the others, the ground color is distinctly 

 white, and they are marked over the entire surface with irregular clusters of blotches 

 of a light reddish-bro-«Ti, intermixed with a few dottings and lines of a deeper shade 

 of broAvn, which at times almost deepen into a black. 



The eggs represented in the plate are from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Florida. 

 For the first of these (Plate I, fig. 8) I am indebted to jNIr. John Krider, of Phila- 

 delphia, who has several times met with nests of this Hawk in New Jersey, not far 

 from Philadelphia. The second (Plate I, fig. 9) was given me by Dr. Trudeau, who 

 obtained it in Pennsylvania. The third (Plate 1, fig. 10) was obtained by one of 

 the recent Government expeditions in Florida, where this bird seems to be more 

 common than in any other part of the United States. 



BUTEO CALTJRUS. 



Buteo calurus, Cassin, Proc. Phil. Acad. Feb. 1855, p. 277. 

 VuLG. — Black Hawk. Black Red-tail. 



The egg represented (Plate I, fig. 7) was obtained in California, by Mr. Emanuel 

 Samuels, while engaged in making collectioiis in natural history for the Boston 

 Society of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution. It was fortunately 

 well identified Avith its parent, the male bird having been shot on its nest. 



This Hawk is comparatively a new species, having been met with for the first 

 time by T. Charlton Henry, M. D., U. S. Army, in the vicinity of Fort Webster, New 

 Mexico, and described by Mr. Cassin in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences, Philadelphia, February, 1855, p. 277. The specimen obtained by Mr. 

 Samuels, with the egg, is the second that has been discovered at the present time, 

 so far as I am aware. In regard to its habits and specific peculiarities but little 

 is known,- and its geographical distribution can only be conjectured from the two 

 points, about a thousand miles apart, where the two representatives of this species 

 were obtained, — Fort Webster and Petaluma. 



The nest was found by Mr. Samuels on a hill north of Petaluma, California. It 

 was built near the top of an evergreen oak, at the height of about sixty feet from 

 the ground. The nest contained two eggs at the time it was discovered, which 

 were just on the point of hatching. It was constructed of sticks, and was lined 

 with moss. Both birds were about the spot. The male bird, manifesting much more 



