264 BIRDS OF PREY OF NOVA SCOTIA—GILPIN. 
not considering it such. I can not but think there is a lost 
hawk in this family. The red tail hawk (B. borealis) is a com- 
mon hawk with us. My notes give him the middle of April, 
Summer and November, resident but leaving us in winter. 
Our specimens, in the finest nuptual plumage, differ from Rich- 
ardson’s description both in the colour of tail and breast. They 
have very much more brown and ferruginous on breast, and the 
tails of the brightest chestnut red, the two outer tail feathers 
obscurely barred. Richardson says of his specimen, killed 
Carleton house, May, 1827, “The tail is brownish orange, tipped 
with soiled white, with a subterminal band of blackish brown, 
there are also traces of thirteen other brownish bars.’ These 
markings do not accord with the bright chestnut red with no 
bars, of ours, excepting the broad subterminal one. At the same 
time, Mr. Downs kept in confinement for several years a pair of 
red tails which always kept the brownish bars on brownish red 
tails, resembling Richardson’s. Thus we have this buzzard in 
two forms. The warm southern form of Wilson and the paler 
arctic one of Richardson. The specimens in the Halifax Museum 
and private collections. are all young birds, but agree exactly to 
Richardson’s deseription in bill, length of primaries and legs and 
feet. I kept one of the southern forms in confinement for 
several years. The second year he lost the brown tail of the 
immature bird and developed a bright chestnut one. I fed him 
upon livers and raw meat, which he received on his bill, but im- 
mediately transferred to his feet, tearing it, from which he fed. 
On giving him a dead bird he instantly became excited, spread- 
ing out his wings and tail and bending over it, with erect crest 
and head plumage, as it was fixed to his perch by his claws. 
He usually tore the sides open, thrusting in his hooked bill and 
drawing out the intestines. His blood stained bill and feathers, 
with his continuous, guttural, angry cries, and piercing eye un- 
deraeath its bony brow, showed for the time he was no poor 
captive tied with a string. The fish hawk (P. halizetus) stands 
out from the family so broadly that he almost deserves a family 
alone. Eagles are admitted carrion eaters, and there are ugly 
stories told about the noblest falcon, of, preying on vermin and 
