Widmann — A Prelwtinary Catalog of the Birds of Missouri. 95 



but their usual business is to remove as many mice and other 

 noxious rodents from the farmer's field as their time and capacity 

 will allow. As a summer resident it used to be well known in 

 all parts of the state; the timber along the streams of our 

 northern and western prairie region suited it as well as the 

 wooded hill-sides in the Ozarks ; even the watery southeast was 

 not entirely deserted, though it prefers partly open country to 

 densely wooded regions. The wooded bluffs which border our 

 river valleys and mountain streams are at present the best loca- 

 tions for the stately Red-tail to rear a brood, but it must be very 

 careful not to betray its aerie, for it is an outlaw in this state, 

 whose latest game and bird protection law strangely exempts 

 from protection all large hawdvs under that ambiguous term, 

 ''chickenhawk." The number of transient visitants is still re- 

 spectable, but small compared with what it used to be, when 

 dozens could be seen in suitable localities, where mice abounded, 

 on a drive of a few miles through farming country, especially in 

 fall. They are most common from the middle of September to 

 the end of November, but, though some are with us in all kinds 

 of winter weather, the bulk is gone during the two or three months 

 of real winter. Our summer residents are on their breeding 

 grounds in February, but the majority of transients pass through 

 our state in March. They do not stop with us as long as in fall, 

 neither are they seen in troops as they sometimes are on bright 

 October days majestically soaring high in the air sailing south- 

 ward. There is a perfectly white albino of this species in the 

 bird collection of the Kansas City Public Museum, but the place 

 and time of capture are not given. 



337a. BuTEO borealis kriderii Hoopes. Krider's Hawk. 



White-bellied Red-tail. 



Geog. Dist. — Great Plains from Texas to Dakotas and Minne- 

 sota; west to Wyoming and Colorado; east to Wisconsin, north- 

 ern Illinois and Iowa in migration. 



Typical examples of this subspecies seem to be very rare every- 

 where, but birds closely approaching this peculiar light phase 

 are apparentlj^ not very rare in Missouri, even as far east as the 

 Mississippi River. Mr. Praeger killed a fine male near Keokuk, 

 December 22, 1889, and Mr. Currier of the same place gives 

 March 17, 1895, and March 23, 1897, as dates of occurrence. 

 Mr. Charles K. Worthen of Warsaw, 111., took a specimen on the 



