The Gos-Hawk. '2' 



ou wing, and can secure their own prey, tlie (Ad birds drive them off, and the}' 

 begin their wanderings ..towards the south. 



In their immature plumage (in which they are so often taken for Golden 

 Eagles) they are dark brown, mottled with fulvous on the mantle and wings ; tail 

 dark brown ; beak black ; cere and irides light brown. The full plumage is not 

 attained until the fifth or sixth year. 



A very large example of an old bird received from the Isle of Lewis was very 

 light in colour, being of a yellowish grey all over. The writer ha.s seen one of 

 a uniform silvery white, that was shot near Glasgow ; in this specimen the 

 plumage was much abraded, and it gave the impression of being of a great age. 

 Very old birds are said to become bluish grey upon the mantle. In the museum 

 at Dunrobin Castle there is a perfect albino that had pink eyes. 



Fat// ily—FAL CONID.-E. 



Gos-Hawk [i.e. Goose-Hawk.) 



Astur pahimbarius, LiNN. 



THIS fierce and rapacious bird is now onh* known in the British Isles as a 

 rare occasional visitor at the periods of migration, when a chance one puts 

 in an appearance from the Continent generallj- on the eastern coasts, and most 

 frequently during the autumn and winter ; these stragglers are mostty immature 

 birds. The last one known to the writer was one seen hy his brother, jVIr. G. F. 

 Mathew, R.N., near Harwich, one day in the winter of 1895. Stevenson writes : 

 " The Gos-Hawk appears occasionally (in Norfolk) both in spring and autumn, 

 but at uncertain intervals, and has of late years become even more scarce than 

 formerly." hX the beginning of the century there were a few pairs of Gos- Hawks 

 nesting in the great forests of Scotland, but in ^lacgilli-vray's time they had 



Vol. Ill U 



