Cooper's Hawk 219 



COOPER'S HAWK 



Called also: Chicken Hawk; Big Blue Darter 



Here is no ally of the farmer, but his foe, the 

 most bold of all his robbers, a blood-thirsty 

 villain that lives by plundering poultry yards, 

 and tearing the warm flesh from the breasts of 

 game and song birds, one of the few members of 

 his generally useful tribe that deserves the 

 punishment ignorantly meted out to his inno- 

 cent relatives. Unhappily, it is perhaps the 

 most common hawk in the greater part of the 

 United States, and therefore does more harm 

 than all the others. It is mentioned in this 

 chapter that concerns the farmers' allies, only 

 because every child should know foe from friend. 



The female Cooper's hawk is about nineteen 

 inches long and her mate a finger-length smaller, 

 but not nearly so small as the little blue darter, 

 the sharp-shinned hawk, only about a foot in 

 length, but which it very closely resembles in 

 plumage and villainy. Both species have 

 slaty-gray upper parts with deep bars across 

 their wings and ashy-gray tails The latter 

 differ in outline, however. Cooper's hawk having 

 a rounded tail with whitish tip, and the sharp- 

 shinned hawk a square tail. In maturity 

 Cooper's hawk wears a blackish crown. Both 

 species have white throats with dark streaks 



