THE PURRE. 139 



of their companions fall, the whole body often alight, or descend 

 to the surface with them, till the sportsman is completely sa- 

 tiated with destruction. On some of those occasions, while 

 crowds of these victims are fluttering along the sand, the small 

 Pigeon Hawk, constrained by necessity, ventures to make a 

 sweep among the dead, in presence of the proprietor, but as 

 suddenly pays for his temerity with his life ! Such a tyrant is 

 man, when vested with power, and unrestrained by the dread 

 of responsibility. 



The Purre is eight inches in length, and fifteen inches in ex.. 

 tent; the bill is black, straight, or slightly bent downwards, 

 about an inch and a half long, very thick at the base, and taper- 

 ing to a slender blunt point at the extremity; eye very small, 

 iris dark hazel; cheeks gray; line over the eye, belly and vent, 

 white; back and scapulars of an ashy brown, marked here and 

 there with spots of black, bordered with bright ferruginous; 

 sides of the rump white; tail-coverts olive, centred with black; 

 chin white; neck below gray; breast and sides thinly marked 

 with pale spots of dusky, in some pure white; wings black, 

 edged and tipt with white; two middle tail feathers dusky, the 

 rest brown ash, edged with white; legs and feet black; toes 

 bordered with a very narrow scalloped membrane. The usual 

 broad band of white crossing the wing, forms a distinguishing 

 characteristic of almost the whole genus. 



On examining more than a hundred of these birds, they varied 

 considerably in the black and ferruginous spots on the back and 

 scapulars; some were altogether plain, while others were thickly 

 marked, particularly on the scapulars, with a red rust colour, 

 centred with black. The females were uniformly more plain 

 than the males; but many of the latter, probably young birds, 

 were destitute of the ferruginous spots. On the twenty-fourth 

 of May, the eggs in the females were about the size of partridge 

 shot. In what particular regions of the north these birds breed, 

 is altogether unknown. 



