138 ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



face thickly crossed with bars of ashy-brown, less distinct on 

 the thighs ; under tail-coverts white ; cere yellow ; bill bluish 

 horn-colour; iris orange. Total length, 19-5 inches; oilmen, 

 1*5; wing, 12-2; tail, 9-0; tarsus, 3-0. 



Adult Female. Similar to the male, but a little larger in size, 

 and rather darker grey. Total length, 23 inches; wing, 14-0 ; 

 tarsus, 3*4. 



Young Birds. Much browner than the adults, mottled with 

 white, the bases of the scapulars and wing-coverts being white, 

 and all the feathers margined with ochraceous-buff ; head and 

 neck rufous-ochre, the nape inclining to whitish; the crown 

 broadly streaked with dark brown, the hind-neck largely 

 marked with spade-shaped spots of the same colour ; forehead, 

 eyebrows, and sides of face whitish, narrowly streaked with 

 dark brown ; under surface of body ochraceous-buff, inclining 

 to white on the throat and under tail-coverts, the entire under 

 surface streaked with dark brown, narrowly on the throat, 

 thighs, and under tail-coverts, more broadly on the chest and 

 breast, the flanks marked with large spade-shaped spots ; tail 

 dark brown, tipped with white, and crossed with five distinct 

 bands of darker brown, the lighter interspaces inclining to 

 white on either margin of the feathers ; feet yellowish-brown, 

 the claws black ; cere and bill as in adults ; iris yellow. 



Sometimes the young birds are rusty-red on the under sur- 

 face. 



Range in Great Britain. Many years ago the Gos-Hawk is 

 said to have bred in the British Islands, but has long since 

 ceased to do so. Speaking of the bird in Scotland, and the 

 evidence of its breeding there, Professor Newton says : " It is 

 not unreasonable to suppose that, in the days when large 

 forests of Scotch firs flourished naturally in that kingdom, it 

 inhabited the districts so occupied ; still there can be no 

 doubt that considerable confusion has arisen from the fact 

 that in several places its common name has been, and yet is, 

 applied to the Peregrine Falcon, and hence some caution must 

 be used in accepting all the testimony as to its former abund- 

 ance in this country." Most of the records of the Gos-Hawk 

 in the British Islands refer to young birds in autumn and 

 winter, at which seasons the species is a tolerably regular mi- 



