Brewster o;^ Birds of Fort Walla Walla, W. T. 231 



respectively Oct. 13 and Oct. 21, iSSi. Neither of these calls for any 

 special comment, but I take the present opportunity to characterize the 

 adult plumage of the male, which apparently has not been previously 

 described.* 



Falco rickardso>n\ adult (J (author's collection, Colorado Springs, 

 Colorado, C. E. Aiken). Above pale ashy-blue, most of the feathers 

 of the back, as well as the inner secondaries and many of the scap- 

 ulars, with fine, black shaft-lines ; crown tinged with ochraceous (prob- 

 ably wanting in the highest conditions of plumage), the black shaft- 

 lines here very numerous, each feather being conspicuously marked; 

 forehead and sides of head light ochraceous, the former with narrow black 

 streaks, the latter with broader brownish ones; a well-defined nuchal 

 collar of rusty-ochraceous with darker mottling; secondaries and primary 

 coverts concolor with the back, but with light bars on their inner webs ; 

 primaries plumbeous-brown, margined with bluish-white and marked 

 conspicuously on both webs with the same color, the markings on the 

 inner webs being pure white and extending in transverse bars from the 

 shaft to- the edge of the feather, those of the outer webs ashy-white and in 

 the form of conspicuous, rounded or quadrate spots; tail crossed by five 

 dark and six light bars, the last of the latter terminal and pure white, 

 the others more or less bordered by pale ashy-blue ; all of the dark bars 

 clear black excepting the basal two, which, on the central rectrices, are 

 nearly uniform with the back, but decidedly darker than the light ones 

 with which they alternate; throat pure white and immaculate; remainder 

 of under parts pale ochraceous, deepest on the tibiae and crissum, where 

 it is decidedly tinged with rusty; feathers of the breast, abdomen, flanks 

 and sides with median stripes of clear reddish-brown, these stripes broad- 

 est on the flanks (where they are sometimes actually transverse), narrow- 

 est across the anterior part of the breast, and everywhere with fine but 

 inconi-picuous dark shaft-lines; crissum entirely unmarked; under tail- 

 coverts and tibiie with conspicuous shaft-lines of dark brown ; edges of 

 wings pale ochraceous; under wing coverts white, barred with reddish- 

 brown; all the maikings of the primaries showing distinctly on their 

 under surfaces. Diiiioisio/is. Wing, S.21 ; tail, 5.18; culmen (from 

 cere), .50. 



Were further proof wanting to establish this Falcon's specific distinct- 

 ness from F. columbarius, the difference in the adult plumage of the two 

 would settle the question. The adult male of F. richardsoni has the 

 mantle almost as light as that of a Herring Gull, while the conspicuous 

 ashy-white spots on the outer webs of the primaries and the six light tail 

 bands constitute equally well-marked characters. The specimen above 

 described is essentially similar to five examples in the National Museum. 



42. Astur atricapillus (TV/is.) Bonaf. American Goshawk. — The 

 present collection includes four Goshawks, one an adult male, the remain- 



*The supposed adult, described by Mr. Ridgway in the "History of North American 

 Birds" (Vol. Ill, p. 148), proves to be an immature bird in its second year. The 

 real adult, however, was figured in the second edition of this work. 



