90 SHARP-SHINNED HAWK. 



On the fifteenth of September, two young men whom I had 

 despatched on a shooting expedition, met with this species on 

 one of the ranges of the Alleghany. It was driving around in 

 the same furious headlong manner, and had made a sweep at 

 a red squirrel, which eluded its grasp, and itself became the 

 victim. These are the only individuals of this bird I have been 

 able to procure, and fortunately they were male and female. 



The female of this species (represented in the plate) is thir- 

 teen inches long, and twenty-five inches in extent; the bill is 

 black towards the point on both mandibles, but light blue at its 

 base; cere a fine pea green; sides of the mouth the same; lores 

 pale whitish blue, beset with hairs; crown and whole upper 

 parts very dark brown, every feather narrowly skirted with a 

 bright rust colour; over the eye a stripe of yellowish white, 

 streaked with deep brown; primaries spotted on their inner 

 vanes with black; secondaries crossed on both vanes with three 

 bars of dusky, below the coverts; inner vanes of both primaries 

 and secondaries brownish white; all the scapulars marked with 

 large round spots of white, not seen unless the plumage be part- 

 ed with the hand; tail long, nearly even, crossed with four bars 

 of black, and as many of brown ash, and tipt with white; throat 

 and whole lower parts pale yellowish white; the former marked 

 with fine long pointed spots of dark brown, the latter with large 

 oblong spots of reddish brown; femorals thickly marked with 

 spade-formed spots, on a pale rufous ground; legs long and 

 feathered a little below the knee, of a greenish yellow colour, 

 most yellow at the joints; edges of the inside of the shins, below 

 the knee, projecting like the edge of a knife, hard and sharp, 

 as if intended to enable the bird to hold its prey with more 

 security between them; eye, sunk below a projecting cartilage, 

 iris bright yellow. 



The male was nearly two inches shorter; the upper parts 

 dark brown; the feathers skirted with pale reddish, the front 

 also streaked with the same; cere greenish yellow; lores bluish; 

 bill black, as in the female; streak over the eye lighter than in 

 the former; chin white; breast the same, streaked with brown; 



