HAWKS AND EAGLES. 881 



O. LATISSIMUS. Broad-icing ed Hawk (or Buzzard). 

 To be seen in Massachusetts during summer, and occasionally 

 winter, but more common as a migrant.* 



a. Eighteen inches long or less. Above, umber brown, 

 with more or less pale edging, and showing white on the hind- 

 head. Tail, banded and tipped with white. Under parts, 

 white, variously streaked and barred with spots of medium or 

 rufous brown, of which traces are often found above. Throat, 

 bordered on each side by a dark maxillary patch. Young 

 with much white above, but that of the tail replaced by light 

 brown. 



This species, like the other Buzzards, has the outer primary 

 (and others) emarginate, i. e., with the inner web rather ab- 

 ruptly narrow towards the end. This Buzzard has three, our 

 others four emarginate. 



b. The nest does not essentially differ, so far as I know, 

 from that of the Red-shouldered Hawk. An egg, which I 

 took from a nest with three young, found near Boston on the 

 sixteenth of May, measures 2.10 X 1.80 of an inch, and is 

 white, blotched and spotted with brown, chiefly of a purplish 

 shade. 



c. The Broad-winged Buzzards are reported as common 

 summer residents in many parts of northern New England. 

 In Massachusetts, they are most common as migrants, but I 

 have seen one in winter, and have found two nests near Boston, 

 in neither of which cases did the female offer any resistance, 

 though Mr. Boardman considers them so spirited as to attack 

 intruders. Dr. Brewer, in the " Birds of North America," 



* Like the Pileated Woodpecker er parts of New England. It breeds 

 and a few other species, this Hawk is rather commonly in portions of Con- 

 evidently either unable or unwilling to necticut and Worcester County, Mas- 

 adapt itself to a region which has sachusetts, and very generally and 

 been extensively cleared and culti- numerously throughout the great co- 

 vated. It loves the primitive forest niferous forests of northern New 

 and everywhere retreats before the England, especially near some of the 

 encroachments of man. Thus it has Maine lakes. During the migrations 

 happened that, while occasional nests it is by no means uncommon about 

 are still found in eastern Massachu- Boston, and it is said to spend the 

 setts, the bird is now practically con- winter occasionally in Connecticut. 

 fined, during the summer, to the wild- W. B. 



