16 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



was of the latter kind ; while on Mount Holyoke the eggs were 

 laid on the bare earth. 



" Audubon thus describes the nest and eggs of the Duck Hawk, 

 as observed by him at Labrador : 



'"I have nowhere seen it so abundant as along the high, rocky shores of 

 Labrador and Newfoundland, where I procured several adult individuals 

 of both sexes, a.s well as some eggs and young. The nests were placed on 

 the shelves of rocks, a few feet from the top, and were flat, and rudely con- 

 structed of sticks and moss. In some were found four eggs, in others on^y 

 two, and in one five. In one nest only a single young bird was found. The 

 eggs vary considerably in color' and size, which, I think, is owing to a differ- 

 ence of age in the females; the eggs of young birds being smaller. The 

 average length of four was two inches, their breadth one and five-eighths. 

 They are somewhat rounded, though larger at one end than the other ; their 

 general and most common color is a reddish or rusty yellowish-brown, 

 spotted and confusedly marked with darker tints of the same, here and there 

 intermixed with lighter. The young are at first thickly covered with soft 

 white down. ... In several instances, we found these falcons breeding on 

 the same ledge with cormorants, Phalacrocorax carbo.' " ! 



" Audubon adds that he is perfectly convinced that the Great- 

 footed Falcon, or Duck Hawk of the later ornithologists, is not 

 different from the Peregrine Falcon of Europe. ' Since my first 

 acquaintance with this species,' he says, ' I have observed nothing 

 in its habits, form, or marking on one continent that is different 

 from what is found on the other.' Since the difference in breeding 

 habits supposed to exist when Bonaparte separated them in 1838, 

 and which influenced his judgment in the matter, has been found 

 to be not real, there seems to be nothing whatever in the breeding 

 habits or in the appearance of the egg.s to indicate specific differ- 

 ence between the American and European birds." 



HTPOTEIOECHIS COLUMBARIUS. Gray. 

 The Pigeon Hawk. 



Falco ctilnmharius. Linnaeus. Syst. Nat , 1. 128 (1766). 

 Falco inttnnixtiis, Daudin. Traite d'Orn., II. 141 (1800). 

 Falco lemernrius, Audubon. Orn. Biog., I. 381 (1831). 

 Falco Audubow. Blackwall, Kesearches, Zool., 1834. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Adult Male. Entire upper parts bluish-slate color, every feather with a black 

 longitudinal line ; forehead send throat white ; other under parts pale yellowish or 



1 Orn. Biog., vol. V. 



