SPARROW-HAWK. 155 



white ; on the throat and neck streaked with 

 clove brown, sometimes tinted with rufous, and 

 on the other parts, except the lower tail coverts, 

 barred with the same colour, which also runs to 

 a point on the apical bands, and sometimes along 

 the shafts ; at times, these bars are much darker 

 than at others, and shew beautifully and dis- 

 tinctly on the pure white breast ; feet and legs 

 gamboge yellow, irides rich safron yellow. Length 

 from fourteen to fifteen inches ; one shot thi* 

 morning (in Nov. 1 836) fourteen inches three quar- 

 ters ; expanse of wings, twenty-four or twenty-five 

 inches. In a young female before us, the upper 

 parts are nearly yellowish brown, tinted with 

 grey, and have the edge of each feather ochra- 

 ceous ; on the head and back of the neck darker, 

 and edged with rufous. The lower parts yellow- 

 ish white ; on the breast, a yellowish brown streak 

 along the shaft of the feather, which, on the lower 

 part of the breast, or on the belly, stretched out 

 at the base to a bar, and produced an appearance 

 at once both barred and streaked. On the thighs 

 and vent, the distribution is in bars of a brownish 

 tint. In the young Goshawk, the breast marking 

 is all longitudinal bars, here it assumes somewhat 

 that of the adult bird ; in both the colouring 

 of the markings in the young is brown, the adults 

 a rich black. 



