Red-tailed Hawk 255 



of the group, with the bill of small or moderate size, the culmen, which is curved 

 from the cere, with the commissure nearly straight and exhibiting no evidence 

 of a tooth. The wings are always ample and long, the third to fifth quills longest, 

 with the first three or four emarginated on the inner webs, while the tail is of 

 moderate length and rounded at the end. The tarsus is rather long, naked or 

 nearly so, and covered with scales, while the toes are short but provided with 

 strong claws. 



The Buzzards have usually been placed next the Eagles, with which they 

 have many points in common, but they differ, among other things, in assuming, 

 it is said, the adult plumage after the first moult, whereas it takes several years 

 for the Eagles to attain full plumage. But despite this lack of a series of imma- 

 ture plumages in the Buteos, there is abundant variation in their coloration, 

 since distinctly light, rufous, and melanistic (black) forms are found in several 

 species, in some instances these differences being so marked as' to have resulted 

 in their being regarded as distinct species. In general the Buzzards feed on 

 mice and other small mammals, snakes, frogs, lizards, large insects, and an 

 occasional bird, usually an injured or sickly one, and some of the American 

 species have the more or less deserved reputation of helping themselves in the 

 poultry yard. 



Red-tailed Hawk. One of the best known North American Buzzards is 

 the Red -tailed Hawk, which, under several well-marked forms, ranges through- 

 out the entire continent. The typical form and the Red-tail par excellence 

 (Buteo borealis] is found in the eastern United States and west to the border of 

 the Great Plains. It is from nineteen to about twenty-five inches in length, 

 blackish brown above, variegated with gray, fulvous, and whitish, and white 

 with more or less of buffy below, with the abdomen streaked with brownish, 

 while the tail is deep rusty rufous, with usually a subterminal band of black. 

 In the immature bird the tail is gray without any shade of red, and is crossed 

 by six to ten dark bands. Although one of our larger birds of prey, it is not 

 very active in its movements, but may frequently be seen sitting, for hours at 

 a time, on a dead limb of a tall tree, watching for its quarry. It frequents mod- 

 erately timbered districts, especially swampy woods along water courses, although 

 it is not infrequently found in upland woods and in mountain regions. It is 

 usually a very shy and wary bird, for continued and persistent persecution has 

 made it suspicious of man, yet it is a bird about which there is not a little mis- 

 understanding. It occasionally makes a meal off young poultry, or an over- 

 confident game bird, and consequently it is killed whenever opportunity presents 

 under the supposition that it is the chief offender in these depredations. As a 

 matter of fact its food consists principally of mice and other small rodents, as 

 well as frogs, reptiles, and insects, and only rarely of poultry or game birds. 

 Of 562 stomachs of this species examined by Dr. Fisher, only 54 contained the 

 remains of poultry or game birds, while 409 contained mice or other mammals, 

 principally the former, and 37 had been feeding on batrachians and reptiles, and 

 47 on insects. The destructive propensity of meadow mice, shrews, and ground 

 squirrels is enormous, and unless in some way kept in check would result in 



