1612 The Zoologist— April, 1869. 



The following species of Buteo probably occur on the island : — 

 The redshouldered l)a\vk (B. lineatus, Gmel.) and the broadwinged 

 hawk {B. pennsylvauicus, Wilson). I think 1 have seen the latter on 

 wing, but obtained no specimen. 



Black Hawk (Archibuteo Sancli-Johannis, Gmelin). — Common ; 

 more especially in the immature plumage, in which state some speci- 

 mens so closely resemble A. lagopus that it is hard to distinguish 

 between the species. I had an individual of the former species 

 — A. Sancti-Johannis — which agreed so well with descriptions of 

 A. lagopus that 1 named it as such in my note-book. 1 kept this 

 specimen alive for upwards of two months, and fed it almost entirely 

 on trout {Salino fontiiialis) , to which it seemed particularly partial, 

 but invariably refused smelts [Osmerus viridescens), either dead or 

 alive, and fresh from the water. I never tried any other specimens 

 offish, and cannot account for the bird's dislike to the smelt; it may 

 have been the peculiar cucumber-smell — cerlainly not the taste — 

 which this delicious little fish possesses. I do not think A. Sancti- 

 Johannis a " fisher" by nature ; at least, 1 never saw it in the act of 

 fishing. Unfortunately I did not preserve the skin of this bird (the 

 feathers got rather shabby during confinement) ; had I done so, I 

 think it would have puzzled more than one good ornithologist to 

 separate it from skins of the European A. lagopus, inasmuch as the 

 under surface of the body was no darker than ordinary specimens of 

 A. lagopus, although I never examined any afterwards but what were, 

 as a rule, much darker. My bird was a female and measured twenty- 

 three inches, wing sixteen and three-quarter inches, and, from the 

 appearance of the ovary, would have laid the following year (1867). 

 The black hawk — or, rather it should be buzzard — is a summer migrant 

 to Newfoundland, but, as a rule, remains later in the fall than most of 

 the Falconidai. 



American Hen //«m'er (Circus hudsonius, Linn.) — Although one 

 of the most abundant hawks in the Atlantic Slates of America, and 

 said by my old friend Downs lo be equally common in Nova Scotia, 

 I did not, strange to say, obtain a single example in Newfoundland, 

 although I found some of the settlers knew the bird by its white rump, 

 and distinguished it by the name of "hen hawk." I am almost certain 

 of having seen it on wing myself at Cow Head. Without specimens, 

 it is impossible for me to say in what peculiarities of plumage (if any), 

 &c., this bird differs from the European C. cyaneus. 



