88 GREAT-FOOTED HAWK. 



Like most other Hawks, this is a solitary bird, excepting during the 

 breeding season, at the beginning of which it is seen in pairs. Their sea- 

 son of breeding is so very early, that it might be said to be in winter. I 

 have seen the male caressing the female as early as the first days of De- 

 cember. 



This species visits Louisiana during the winter months only ; for al- 

 though I have observed it mating then, it generally disappears a few 

 days after, and in a fortnight later none can be seen. It is scarce in the 

 Middle States, where, as well as in the Southern Districts, it lives along 

 water-courses, and in the neighbourhood of the shores of the sea and 

 inland lakes. I should think that they breed in the United States, 

 having shot a pair in the month of August near the Falls of Niagara. 

 It is extremely tenacious of life, and if not wounded in the wings, though 

 mortally so in the body, it flies to the last gasp, and does not fall untU 

 life is extinct. I never saw one of them attack a quadruped, although 

 I have frequently seen them perched within sight of squirrels, which I 

 thought they might easily have secured, had they been so inclined. 



Once when nearing the coast of England, being then about a hundred 

 and fifty miles distant from it, in the month of July, I obtained a pair of 

 these birds, which had come on board our vessel, and had been shot 

 there. I examined them ^vith care, and found no difference between 

 them and those which I had shot in America. They are at present 

 scarce in England, where I have seen only a few. In London, some in- 

 dividuals of the species resort to the cupola of St Paul's Cathedral, and 

 the towers of Westminster Abbey, to roost, and probably to breed. 

 I have seen them depart from these places at day dawn, and return in 

 the evening. 



The achievements of this species are well known in Europe, where it 

 is even at the present day trained for the chase. Whilst on a visit at 

 Dalmahoy, the seat of the Earl of Morton, near Edinburgh, I had the 

 pleasure of seeing a pair of these birds hooded, and with small brass bells 

 on their legs, in excellent training. They were the property of that 

 nobleman. 



These birds sometimes roost in the hoUows of trees. I saw one re- 

 sorting for weeks every night to a hole in a dead sycamore, near Louis- 

 ville in Kentucky. It generally came to the place a little before sunset, 

 alighted on the dead branches, and in a short time after flew into the hol- 

 low, where it spent the night, and from whence I saw it issuing at dawn. 



