BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 1838 
its life or death depends upon the distances between the trees 
through which it is escaping, for while the Hawk may fly the 
swifter, the Grouse employs the trees for coverts successively 
most ingeniously, until in a moment of seclusion it will drop 
into the brush and dry leaves so suddenly, and remain so mo- 
tionless as to elude the eye of its adversary completely. 
Many of my correspondents in various sections of the State 
have reported the presence of this species. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Head above a brownish-black, mixed with white on the occi- 
put, other parts dark ashy-brown, with the shafts of the 
feathers brownish-black; an obscure rufous collar on the neck 
behind; throat and under tail coverts white, the former with 
lines of dark brown, other under parts transversely barred 
with light rufous and white; quills ashy-brown, with darker 
bands and white irregular markings on their inner webs; tail 
dark cinereous, tipped with white, and with four wide bands of 
brownish-black. 
Length (female), 18 to 20; wing, 10 to 11; tail, 8.50. 
Habitat, North America. 
ACCIPLTER ATRICAPILLUS (Witson). (834.) 
\ AMERICAN GOSHAWK. 
I have no positive evidence that this hawk breeds in Minne- 
sota, yet I believe it does to some extent. It is a winter visit- 
ant in all the middle and southern counties, that arrives here 
about the first of January. In the milder winters it often fails 
to come at all, and it returns northward very early in the 
spring. The first individual that came into my hands here, 
was amature male that was taken by a farmer in his barn in 
February in the act of capturing a hen which it had followed 
in. The hawk was alive, uninjured and in good winter plum- 
age, but he would not eat in captivity, and Tannerized himself 
into a martyr to science. 
In all, I have obtained half a dozen in various plumages, 
mostly that of the young of the previous year. They leave 
our latitude mostly in March. It is a beautiful species, not 
easily forgotten after having been in the hands once, on 
account of the delicacy of the markings of’ the feathers. The 
flight, once observed, is so characteristic that the bird may be 
quite reliably identified by it alone. I have never seen them 
moving in circles, but in very direct lines; often high in the air 
on cold days, but when hunting for Ruffed Grouse, Prairie Chick- 
ens, and rabbits, all of which it will seize with the bearing of 
a monarch of the wing, it flies comparatively low, but none the 
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