AVES—FALCON...KITE. 461 
THE ROUGH-LEGGED FALCON,I 
NotwitHstanpine its formidable size and appearance, spends the chief part 
of the winter among our low swamps and meadows, watching for mice, 
frogs, lame ducks, and other inglorious game. Twenty or thirty individuals 
of this family have regularly taken up their winter quarters for several years 
past in the meadows below Philadelphia, between the Delaware and 
Schuylkill rivers, where they spend their time watching the banks like cats; 
or sailing low and slowly over the surfaces of the ditches. Though rendered 
shy by any attempt made to shoot them, they seidom fly far, usually from 
one tree to another at no great distance, making a loud squealing as they 
rise, something resembling the neighing of a young colt, though in a more 
shrill and savage tone. 
This bird is common during winter in the lower parts of Maryland, and 
numerous in the extensive meadows below Newark, New Jersey; and are 
frequent along the Connecticut river. Their flight is slow and heavy. 
They take their station at daybreak near a ditch, bank, or haystack, for 
hours together, watching with patient vigilance for the first unlueky frog, 
mouse, or lizard, to make its isppearance. The instant one of these is de- 
seried, the hawk, sliding into ihe air, sweeps over the spot, and in an instant 
has his prey grappled and sprawling in the air. 
PE MUSS te sip Ply Kit he 
I rigst observed, says Wilson, a few miles below Natchez, where I found 
them in company with the turkey buzzard, whose flight it so exactly 
imitates as to seem the same species, in miniature. It sails about in easy 
circles, and at an immense height in the air. I observed numbers of this 
liawk sweeping about among the trees like swallows, in pursuit of the 
locusts that were in swarms on the trees, so that insects, it would appear, 
are the principal food of this species; but I do not doubt that mice, lizards, 
snakes, and small birds, furnish him with an occasional repast. This hawk 
is fourteen inches in length, and three feet in extent of wing. It is of an 
ash color, with a white neck and head. 
— 
1 Fr, lagopus, Lin. 2 F. plumbeus, GMEL. 
39* 
