THE DUCK HAWK, ETC. 161 



The eggs of the different species of this group of Fal- 

 cons seem to resemble each other greatly, and to be sub- 

 ject to considerable variation in the same species. In the 

 manner of laying the eggs there is also a similarity, as 

 might be expected among closely allied species ; the same 

 species sometimes laying them on the bare rocks, and 

 again in a bulky nest of sticks and other coarse materials. 

 The nest of this species visited on Talcott Mountain, Ct., 

 was of the latter kind, while on Mount Holyoke the eggs 

 were laid on the bare earth. 



Audubon thus describes the nest and eggs of the Duck 

 Hawk as observed by him at Labrador : 



"I have nowhere seen it so abundant as along the high, rocky shores 

 of Labrador and Newfoundland, where I procured several adult indi- 

 viduals of both sexes as well as some eggs and young. The nests were 

 placed on the shelves of rocks, a few feet from the top, and were flat 

 and rudely constructed of sticks and moss. In some were found four 

 eggs, in others only two, and in one five. In one nest only a single 

 young bird was found. The eggs vary considerably in color and size, 

 which I think is owing to a difference of age in the females, the eggs 

 of young birds being smaller. The average length of four was two 

 inches, their breadth one and five-eighths. They are somewhat round- 

 ed, though larger at one end than the other; their general and most 

 common color is a reddish or rusty yellowish brown, spotted and con- 

 fusedly marked with darker tints of the same, here and there intermix- 

 ed with lighter. The young are at first thickly covered with soft white 

 down. * * * * In several instances, we found these Falcons breeding on 

 the same ledge with Cormorants, Phalacrocorax car&o."* 



Audubon adds that he is perfectly convinced that the 

 Great-footed Falcon, or Duck Hawk of the later 

 ornithologists is not different from the Peregrine Falcon of 

 Europe. "Since my first acquaintance with this species," 

 he says, "I have observed nothing in its habits, form, or 

 marking on one continent that is different from what is 

 found on the other." Since the difference in breeding hab- 

 its supposed to exist when Bonaparte separated them in 

 1838, and which influenced his judgment in the matter, 

 has been found to be not real, there seems to be nothing 

 whatever in the breeding habits or in the appearance of 

 the eggs to indicate specific difference between the Amer- 

 ican and European birds. 

 Springfield, July, 1864. 



*Orn. Biog., vol. V.,p. 366. 



ESSEX INST. PROCEED. VOL. IV. U. 



