72 THE PESTS OF THE FARM. 



RED -TAILED HAWK. This species inhabits the whole United 

 States, and is not migratory. Among extensive meadows, where 

 flocks of larks, and where mice and moles are in great abundance, 

 many individuals of this hawk spend the greater part of the winter. 

 Others prowl around the plantations, looking out for vagrant 

 chickens ; their method of seizing which is, by sweeping swiftly 

 over the spot, and, grappling them with their talons, bearing them 

 away to the woods. 



The red-tailed hawk is twenty inches long, and three feet nine 

 inches in extent ; bill, blue-black ; cere, and sides of the mouth, 

 yellow, tinged with green ; lores, and spot on the under eyelid, 

 white, the former marked with fine, radiating hairs ; eyebrow, or 

 cartilage, a dull eel-skin color, prominent, projecting over the eye ; 

 a broad streak of dark brown extends from the sides of the mouth 

 backwards ; crown and hind head, dark brown, seamed with white, 

 and ferruginous ; sides of the neck, dull ferruginous, streaked with 

 brown; eye, large; iris, pale amber; back and shoulders, deep 

 brown ; wings, dusky, barred with blackish ; ends of the five first 

 primaries, nearly black ; scapulars, barred broadly with white and 

 brown ; sides of the tail-coverts, white, barred with ferruginous, 

 middle ones dark, edged with rust ; tail, rounded, extending two 

 inches beyond the wings, and of a bright red brown, with a single 

 band of black near the end, and tipped with brownish white ; on 

 some of the lateral feathers are slight indications of the remains of 

 other narrow bars ; lower parts, brownish white ; the breast, fer- 

 ruginous, streaked with dark brown ; across the belly, a band of 

 interrupted spots of brown ; chin, white ; femorals and vent, pale 

 brownish white, the former marked with a few minute heart- 

 shaped spots of brown ; legs, yellow, feathered half way below the 

 knees. 



The gun, or traps baited with mice, toads, &c., or a dead fowl, 

 are the proper -means to destroy hawks. 



OWLS. There is a great variety of owls all ovw America. Some 

 are so rare as to be of no account as pests ; others are common 

 everywhere. The predacious habits of all are the same. Those that 

 are described will, as far as evil habits are concerned, -epresent the 

 whole variety. 



THE BARRED OWL. This is one of our most common owls. 

 It is very frequently observed flying during day, and certainly sees 

 more distinctly at that time than many of its genus. 



These birds sometimes seize on fowls, partridges, and young rab- 



