196 THE ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK. 



guage, uttered with great spirit, and intermixed with strains 

 of merry laughter? Already in the olden times Virgil 

 noted the "Swallow's twitter on the chimney-tops." Bry- 

 ant, of our own times, sings of " the gossip of Swallows 

 through all the sky;" and Tennyson tells how the Swallows 

 "chirp and twitter twenty million loves." 



The Barn Swallow sometimes raises a second brood in 

 late June or early July. Mr. Burroughs says: "A friend 

 tells me of a pair of Barn Swallows which, taking a fanciful 

 turn, saddled their nest in the loop of a rope that was pen- 

 dent from a peg in the peak, and liked it so well that they 

 repeated the experiment next year." 



This American Swallow occupies North and Middle Amer- 

 ica to the arctics, and spends the winter in the West Indies. 

 There is a closely-allied variety, probably of the same spe- 

 cies, Erythrogaster< in South America. 



THE ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK. 



About the middle or twentieth of April, sailing low and 

 slow over some wet field or marsh, or along some streamlet, 

 much resembling both in size and movement the Red-tailed 

 Hawk, but readily distinguished by the large amount of 

 white in his expanded wings and tail, and plumage gener- 

 ally, we occasionally see the Rough-legged Buzzard or 

 Hawk (Archibuteo lagopus). It is simply a passenger to the 

 north, breeding, as is supposed, entirely beyond the Union; 

 returning to us again about the last of October or the first 

 of November, and wintering farther south, in the seaward 

 portions of the Middle and Southern States, but not beyond. 

 As a passenger, it is by no means rare here. 



The male about 20.00 and the female about 22.00 

 long, this species, common to both Europe and Amer- 

 ica, is always to be determined by its thickly-feathered 



