80 C. If. Merriam Birds of Connecticut. 



Professor Wm. D. Whitney has a finely mounted specimen, in his 

 cabinet, which was shot, some years ago, at Hamden Plains, near 

 New Haven, Conn. W. W. Coe, and Jno. H. Sage, of Portland, 

 Conn., have each several fine specimens taken in the State one near 

 Hartford, Nov. 9th, 1867. Mr. Geo. Bird Grinnell secured one, late 

 in the fall (Nov. or Dec.) of 1876, at Milford, Conn. For several 

 days previous to its capture it had been in the habit of lunching on a 

 neighbor's chickens. Mr. Erwin I. Shores writes me that, in the 

 vicinity of Suffield, Conn., he has seen it " four or more times during 

 the last two winters." I am informed by Dr. Wm. Wood, of East 

 Windsor Hill, Conn., that they are really common in tliat vicinity 

 about once in ten years (he once had seven specimens, in the flesh, 

 on hand at one time) but are seldom seen between times. The doctor 

 relates the following anecdote as illustrating well the boldness and 

 daring often displayed by this species : An old man, over eighty years 

 of age, was sitting quietly in the kitchen with his maiden daughter. 

 The door was open and their quiet was suddenly broken by a hen 

 who rushed frantically into the room, followed closely by a large 

 Goshawk. There, right on the kitchen floor, and in the presence of 

 the two, the bold Hawk seized the hen. The feeble old man came 

 to the rescue, and, with stick in hand, finally succeeded in beating off 

 the intruder, who now made for the door. But it was too late the 

 daughter had closed the door and actually caught the furious bird in 

 her hands and put him to death ! 



Zadock Thompson says : " Its disposition is very savage, and it is 

 withal so much of a cannibal as sometimes to devour its own young !"* 

 Dr. Wm. Wood, of East Windsor Hill, writes that a specimen which 

 he once kept alive in a small room " refused food until the thirteenth 



day, when it devoured an entire hen It died the next 



night, a victim to its voraciousness. "f " The poet Chaucer in allud- 

 ing to it says, 



' Riding on hawking by the river, 

 With gray Goshawk in hand.' 



Falconry and hawking, as defined by our lexicographers, are synony- 

 mous, but formerly birds of sport were divided into two classes, those 

 of falconry, and those of hawking. This bird came under the latter 

 class." " The Goshawk does not usually soar high, like the longer 

 winged Hawks, nor dart upon its prey by a direct descent, as do the 



* History of Vermont, p. 62. 1842. 



f Hartford Times, chap, ix, May 18th, 1861. 



