252 



NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



Other writers also agree in representing this Hawk as heavy and sluggish 

 in habit, and as frequenting streams of water, and its food as consisting 

 chiefly of the reptiles and smaller animals which frequent the banks of 

 rivers and creeks. It builds its nests on low trees, in the immediate vicinity 

 of its hunting-ground, and often over tlie water, constructing them of coarse 

 flags and water-plants. The nests are usually not very large for the birds, 

 are flattened or with very slight depressions, and the materials are very 

 loosely put together. The eggs are from three to Ave in number, usually 

 white and unspotted, occasionally with more or less of a yellowish or tawny 

 tinge. In some instances they are faintly marked with light dashes or 

 stains of a yellowish-brown, and, more rarely, are also marked with small 

 blotches of sepia-brown, and with smaller dottings of purplish-drab. Their 

 average measurement is, length 2.13, breadth 1.69 inches. 



Our knowledge of the eggs of these Hawks is derived from the collection 

 of the late Dr. Berlandier, of Matamoras, in the Province of Tamaulipas, 

 Mexico. In the cabinet of that gentleman were several varieties, now in 

 the possession of the Smithsonian Institution, and presented to it by Lieu- 

 tenant Couch. 



Genus ONYCHOTES, Ridgway. 



Onychotes, Ridgway, P. A. N. S. Philad. Dec. 1870, 142. (Type, 0. gruheri, nov. sp.) 

 GrEN. Char. Bill short, the tip remarkably short and obtuse, and only gradually bent ; 



Onychotes ^liberi. 



cere on top about equal to the culmen, very broad basally in its transverse diameter, and 

 ascending, in its lateral outline, on a line with the culmen ; commissure only faintly lobed. 



