6o Mearns on Birds of Arizona. [January 



SOME BIRDS OF ARIZONA. 



BY EDGAR A. MEARNS. 



(Assistant Surgeon, U. S. A.) 



Zone-tailed Hawk. Butro abbrcviatus Caban. 



Mexican Black Hawk. Uritbitiiiga antJiraci)ia (Liciit.) 



Lafr.) 



Mr apology for associating the histories of two birds belong- 

 ing to widely diflerent genera is that nuich doubt and some con- 

 fusion exists in the minds of ornithologists concerning the identity 

 and status as North American birds of the two species under con- 

 sideration. 



The first notice of the Zone-tailed Hawk was from the pen of 

 Cabanis. in 184S.* It was described and figured by Sclater, in 

 i85!^5 as Sittco zonoccrcHS^ wliich name continued in vogue until 

 Sharpef reverted to Cabanis's original B. abbrevlatus ; and Mr. 

 D. G. Elliot subsequently gave a handsome figure of it in his 

 'Illustrations of Birds of North Ameiica'. It was first taken within 

 the United States by Dr. J. G. Cooper, who shot the specimen de- 

 scribed in his 'Birds of California,' on the 23d of February, 1S62, 

 thirty miles north of San Diego. California, and five from the 

 coast ; but Dr. Coues first reported its capture in the United States, 

 in the 'Proceedings' of the Philadelphia Academy, in 1S66, he 

 having taken a specimen on the Gila River, in Arizona, on Sep- 

 tember 24, 1864. The description of the adult Zone-tailed 

 Hawk, by Mr. Ridgwav, in 'North American Birds,' was based 

 on a specimen taken by Dr. Coues, in the month of August, on 

 the Hassayampa River, in Arizona. When the great work on 

 Nortli American birds, bv Baird, Brewer and Ridgway, was pub- 

 lished, in 1874, Bittco abbrevlatus was still known as a bird of 

 the United States only through the published accounts of Drs. 

 Coues and Cooper, and was regarded as a very rare straggler over 

 our border into Southern California and Arizona ; but Mr. Brewster 



* But Gray's Buteo albonotatns (Isis, 1847, p. 32-)) has been doubtfully referred here, 

 t Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum, Vol. I, p. 163. 



