120 A Description of the Birds, Sc. 
light bluish gray ; back and scapulars dark slate color; upper 
tail coverts white; shoulders silvery gray, finely mottled with 
black ; false wing feathers and primary wing coverts deep 
hoary, inclined to grayish black; secondary coverts white, 
mottled with narrow tortuous blackish lines; primary wing 
feathers brownish black, variegated on inner vanes towards 
quills with lines or streaks of white ; secondaries pure white, 
here and there dotted or finely streaked with black ; belly, 
thighs, and under tail coverts finely banded black and white. 
Tail slight rounded, the two centre feathers blackish gray, 
and the rest blackish, or blackish gray and white in different 
proportions, the latter particularly abundant in the two outer- 
most ones of each side, and all, with the exception of the two 
middle ones, are broadly tipt with white. Tarsi and toes 
vermillion red; claws black. Length from bill to base of 
tail ten inches; length of latter the same. 
Female.—Colors the same as those of the male, and in point 
of size is but little superior to it. 
Young.—Buill blackish, with a little of the base of each 
mandible yellow; cere greenish yellow; eyes grayish yellow, 
inclined to pure yellow; head, neck, and back brown, the 
feathers of the two former white towards quills, whereby the 
neck in particular, at times, appears much marked with the 
latter color; tail coverts white, with a triangular brown spot 
near the tip of each; shoulders brown, with the feathers 
edged and tipt with reddish white ; belly, thighs, and under 
tail coverts marked with alternate broad irregular brown and 
white bands; primary wing coverts brown, tipt with white ; 
primary wing feathers reddish brown, banded with black, and 
the outer vanes tinted with gray ; secondaries bluish gray, 
banded with black, and tipt with white; tail with reddish 
gray and blackish brown transverse bands; the former four in 
number; legs and toes somewhat flesh colored ; claws black. 
This Hawk is very generally distributed throughout the 
whole of South Africa, and is particularly abundant along the 
flats adjoining the western coast. It lives upon mice, lizards, 
and the smaller birds; makes its nest on trees; construct it 
externally with dried twigs, and internally with wool, and 
lays two or three white eggs of nearly the size and shape of 
those of the common domestic hen. 
Obs.—In the appendix to Denham and Clapperton’s Travels 
and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa, p. 195, it is 
stated that “this beautiful Hawk was met with occasionally in 
most parts of Central Africa, but not in any abundance.” It is 
placed in the Genus Astur by the writer of the observation 
just quoted, but the length of the tarsi and its general form, 
appear to me to ally it more to the Accipiter. 
(To be continued.) 
[26] 
