80 AMERICAN BUZZARD. 



The American Buzzard, or White-breasted Hawk, is twenty- 

 two inches long, and four feet in extent; cere pale green; bill 

 pale blue, black at the point; eye bright straw colour; eyebrow 

 projecting greatly; head broad, flat and large; upper part of the 

 head, sides of the neck and back, brown, streaked and seamed 

 with white, and some pale rust; scapulars and wing-coverts 

 spotted with white; wing quills much resembling the preceding 

 species; tail-coverts white, handsomely barred with brown; tail 

 slightly rounded, of a pale brown colour, varying in some to a 

 sorrel, crossed by nine or ten bars of black, and tipt for half an 

 inch with white; wings brown, barred with dusky; inner vanes 

 nearly all white; chin, throat and breast, pure white, with the 

 exception of some slight touches of brown that enclose the chin; 

 femorals yellowish white, thinly marked with minute touches 

 of rust; legs bright yellow, feathered half way down; belly 

 broadly spotted with black or very deep brown; the tips of the 

 wings reach to the middle of the tail. 



My reason for inclining to consider this a distinct species 

 from the last, is that of having uniformly found the present two 

 or three inches larger than the former, though this may possibly 

 be owing to their greater age.* 



Prince Musignano is of opinion that Wilson took his admeasurement of the 

 borealis from males, and that of the leverianus from females; as he has always 

 found the males in both states of plumage twenty inches, (a size which Wil- 

 son gives as that of the borealis} and the females of both, twenty-two inches, 

 (the size of the leveriamis as given by Wilson.) 





