Species III. FALCO COLUMBARIUS. 



PIGEON HAWK. 



[Plate XV. Fig. 3.— Male.] 



Linn. Syst. ed. 10, p. 90, No. 19. — Lath. Si/n. v. i., p. 101, No. 86. — L'Epervier 

 de la Caroline, Briss. Orn. i., p. 378. — C.4TEsb. i , p, 3. t. 3. — B.4Rtram, p. 290. 

 — Gmel. Si/st. v. I., p. 281. 



This small Hawk possesses great spirit and rapidity of flight. He is 

 generally migratory in the middle and northern states, arriving in Penn- 

 sylvania early in spring, and extending hi.s migrations as far north as 

 Hudson's Bay. After building and rearing his young, he retires to the 

 south early in November. Small birds and mice are his principal food. 

 When the Reed-birds, Grakles, and Red-winged Blackbirds, congregate 

 in large flights, he is often observed hovering in their rear, or on their 

 flanks, picking up the weak, the wounded or stragglers ; and frequently 

 making a sudden and fatal sweep into the very midst of their multitudes. 

 The flocks of robins and pigeons are honored with the same attentions 

 from this marauder ; whose daily excursions are entirely regulated by 

 the movements of the groat body, on whose unfortunate members he 

 fattens. The individual from which the drawing in the plate was taken, 

 was .shot in the meadows below Philadelphia, in the month of August. 

 He was carrying off a blackbird [Oriolus phceniceus) from the flock, and 

 though mortally wounded and dying, held his prey fast till his last ex- 

 piring breath ; having struck his claws into its very heart. This was 

 found to be a male. Sometimes when shot at, and not hurt, he will fly 

 in circles over the sportsman's head, shrieking out with great violence, as 

 if highly irritated. He frequently flies low, skimming a little above the 

 field. I have never seen his nest. 



The Pigeon Hawk is eleven inches long, and twenty-three broad ; the 

 whole upper parts are of a deep dark brown, except the tail, which is 

 crossed with bars of white ; the inner vanes of the quill feathers are 

 marked with round spots of reddish brown ; the bill is short, strongly 

 toothed, of a light blue color, and tipped with black ; the skin surround- 

 ing the eye greenish ; cere the same ; temples, and line over the eye, 

 light brown ; the lower parts brownish white, .streaked laterally with 

 dark brown ; legs yellow, claws black. The female is an inch and a 

 half longer, of a still deeper color, though marked nearly in the same 

 manner, with the exception of some white on the hindhead. The femo- 

 rals, or thigh feathers, in both, are of a remarkable length, reaching 



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