124 BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



stroys hares, grouse, teal, and even the young of larger ducks, in the 

 state in which they are known as ' flappers,' besides capturing the usual 

 variety of smaller birds and quadrupeds. It occasionally seizes upon 

 reptiles or picks up insects. In securing its prey it gives chase openly 

 and drives down its quarry with almost incredible velocity." 



Thirty-four Cooper's Hawks, which I have examined, sixteen showed 

 the food taken to have been chickens ; ten revealed small birds spar- 

 rows, warblers and meadow larks two, quail ; one, bull-frogs ; three, 

 mice and insects ; two, hair and other remains of small quadrupeds. 



Accipiter atricapillus (WiLS.). 



American Goshawk ; Blue Hawk. 



DESCRIPTION (Plate 83). 



Length 24 inches ; extent "about 46 ;" wing 14^; tail 11^; male smaller. 



Adult. Above dark lead color, black on top of head; white stripe over eye, and 

 more or less indistinct about occiput ; tail has four or five indistinct blackish bars ; 

 ends of tail feathers whitish ; lower parts pale ashy white, with a faint leaden tint, 

 sharply streaked with blackish and finely mottled or barred with white. The young 

 dark brown above, feathers edged and spotted, with whitish and pale reddish-brown ; 

 below yellowish-white and spotted with brown. 



Habitat. Northern and eastern North America, breeding mostly north of the 

 United States. South in winter to the middle States. Accidental in England. 



This fierce and predatory hawk is by no means as common as either 

 of the two species previously mentioned. I have observed the " Blue 

 Hawk," as it is called by hunters and lumbermen, only as a rare and 

 irregular winter visitor in Pennsylvania. Audubon found the Goshawk 

 breeding in the Great Pine swamp in this state. Fifteen or twenty 

 years ago these hawks, it is said, were very frequently seen during all 

 seasons in the counties of Cameron, Warren, Elk, Potter, Wyoming, 

 Forest and McKean, where they then, it is stated, bred regularly. Mr. 

 M. M. Larrabee, Emporium, Cameron county, says he always met with 

 Goshawks about the nesting places of wild pigeons, but when the 

 pigeons left his locality these hawks also departed, and are now seen 

 there only as rare winter visitors. Mr. Otto Behr, Lopez, Sullivan 

 county, in a letter dated February 28, 1890, kindly furnishes the follow- 

 ing information showing that the species still breeds in Pennsylvania : 

 " Where we live there is any amount of virgin forest ; altitude from 1,600 

 to 2,500 feet. The Goshawk breeds regularly in this locality. We 

 found the nests of two, at different times, both had one young ready to 

 leave the nest, which was built in both cases in the crotch of a beech, 

 and composed of rather large sticks, making a very bulky and coarse 

 looking affair. We kept one of the hawks until late in the fall, when 

 he broke loose and got away." Prof. H. Justin Roddy, of Millersville } 

 writing to me in July, 1889, says : " I spent two months, last July, in the 

 pine forests of Centre county. I there saw A. atricapillus. I did not 



