(i522) a) 
SHARP-SHINNED OR SLATE-COLOURED HAWK. 
FALCcCO Fuscus, GMEL. 
PLATE CCCLXXIV. Mare anp FeMA.e. 
THERE is a pleasure which that ornithologist only can feel who 
spends his days in searching for the materials best adapted for his 
purpose, and which arises from the contemplation of the objects he is 
anxious to portray and describe, as they roam in freedom over Nature’s 
wild domains. Another pleasure is derived from finding in different 
countries birds so much alike in form, colour, and habits, that they 
seem as if formed for the purpose of exercising our faculties of obser- 
vation and comparison. But this pleasure passes into pain, or at least 
perplexity, when, as in the present instance, two species differ so 
slightly that you cannot clearly define their characters, although they 
yet seem to be distinct. In fact, I long felt uncertain whether the 
American bird described by Wixson under the names of Sharp-shinned 
Hawk, and Slate-coloured Hawk, was distinct from the Sparrow Hawk, 
F, Nisus, of Europe. 
It is mentioned in the Fauna Boreali-Americana, that a specimen 
of this bird was killed in the vicinity of Moose Factory, and that it has 
been deposited by the Hudson’s Bay Company in the Zoological Mu- 
seum of London. This specimen I have not seen, but confiding en- 
tirely in the accuracy of every fact mentioned by the authors of that 
work, I here adduce it as a proof of the extraordinary range of this 
species in America, which from the extreme north extends to our 
most southern limits, perhaps far beyond them, during its autumnal 
and winter migrations. I have met with it in every State or Territory of 
the Union that I have visited. In the spring of 1837, it was abundant 
in Texas, where it appeared to be travelling eastward. I have a spe- 
cimen procured by Dr TownseEnp in the neighbourhood of the Columbia 
River ; and, when on my way towards Labrador, I met with it plenti- 
fully as far as the southern shores of the Gulf of St Lawrence, beyond 
which, however, none were observed by me or any of my party. 
I never saw this daring little marauder on wing without saying or 
thinking “ There goes the miniature of the Goshawk!” Indeed, 
