538 THE RICHARDSON MERLIN. 
No. 217. 
RICHARDSON’S MERLIN. 
©. U. No. 358. Falco columbarius richardsonii ( Kidgw.). 
Synonyms.—AMERICAN MERLIN. Rich arpson’s PIGEON Hawk. 
Description.—./dults somewhat similar to /, columbarius but larger and 
much lighter in coloration. Adult male: Above bluish dusky or brownish slaty 
gray as to ground but much relieved by feather-skirtings of rusty brown, and by 
blackish shafts; pileum and hind-neck chiefly rusty brown (nearly Prout’s brown) 
finely streaked with black; wings and tail brownish dusky, the former, both on 
remiges and covert feathers, crossed by numerous interrupted bars of whitish 
and tawny, the latter tipped with white and crossed with five prominent white 
bars; flight-feathers and tertials also tipped with white or grayish; underparts 
chiefly cream-buff as to ground, but white, immaculate, on throat; jugulum finely 
pencilled and breast heavily streaked with sepia (each streak with darker shaft- 
line); sides and flanks still more broadly marked, or else sepia spotted with 
whitish; flags and posterior underparts sparsely pencilled with sepia or unmarked 
centrally; lores and a faintly defined superciliary buffy; forehead buffy white 
sharply streaked with black; sides of head and neck forming transitional area, 
finely streaked buffy, rusty, sepia, and whitish in varying proportions. Adult 
female: “Differing in coloration from the male only in points of detail. Ground 
color of the upperparts clear grayish drab, the feathers with conspicuously black 
shafts; all the feathers with pairs of rather indistinct rounded ochraceous spots, 
these most conspicuous on the wings and scapulars. Secondaries crossed with 
three bands of deeper, more reddish, ochraceous. Bands of the tail pure white. 
In other respects exactly like male” (Ridgway). [A mounted Specimen in the 
Provincial Museum at Victoria, labelled female, differs in no respect whatever 
from the male unless it be in heavier streaking of the underparts.]| Young birds 
are said to be more extensively rusty above, with broader and more reddish tail- 
bands, and to be unmarked on lower tail-coverts and crissum. Length 12.00-14.00 
( 304.8-355.6). Measurement of male: wing 7.70 (195.6); tail 5.00 (127); bill 
.50 (12.7); tarsus 1.30 (33). Female: wing 9.00 (228.6); tail 6.10 (154.9) ; bill 
35 (14) it tarsus 1.40 (35.0). ' 
Recognition Marks.—Little hawk size; brownish cast of plumage above; 
heavy ochraceous spotting of wing (much more extensive than in Pigeon Hawk) ; 
tail crossed by six bands (including the terminal band). 
Nesting.—Nest: in cavity of tree or crevice of cliff; rarely of twigs in tree- 
top. Eggs: 3-5, creamy buff heavily sprinkled, spotted, and blotched with shades 
of cinnamon. Av. size, 1.60 x 1.24 (40.6% 31.5). Season: May; one brood. 
General Range.—Interior of North America chiefly east of the Rockies, less 
common westerly to the Pacific and from northern Mexico north to the Sas- 
katchewan—range not precisely separable from that of F. columbarius, but bird 
often found where typicus is absent. 
Range in Washington.—Not common summer resident and migrant east of 
the Cascades. 
Authorities.—/’. richardsoni Ridgw., Allen, B. N. O. C. VI. 1881, p. 128. 
Specimens.—!"'. Prov. C. 
